Emergency dispatch upgrades will spike costs
Early discussions point to efforts aimed at finding ways to keep fees down, By Gretchen Van Nuys Wantage One way or the other, Sussex County’s municipalities will be seeing increases in the cost of dispatching emergency calls in coming years. New Jersey has mandated an emergency dispatch system upgrade over the next several years to “Next Generation 911 technology,” which will be able to accept all types of electronic transmissions, including text and video messages. The required upgrades to Sussex County’s six 911 dispatch centers referred to as “public safety answering points” (PSAPs) will spike their operating costs. “Report on Public Service Answering Point (PSAP) Consolidation” (available at www.sussex.nj.us), the results of a feasibility study conducted by Sussex County, recommends the creation of a single countywide 911 dispatch center, eliminating the county’s six PSAPs. The result: proportionate cost would be much less than if all six PSAPs had to pay for upgrades separately. “We’re at the starting gate of the conversation of whether this should be built,” said County Administrator John Eskilson. “Municipalities have to take a look at this report to see if they want the county to proceed. If they do, then the freeholders will have to decide if they want to proceed.” Getting in step Wantage Township, which has no emergency 911 dispatch capability of its own, has contracted with Vernon Township for dispatch service since at least 1993, and has been paying a yearly fee of $68,711 since 1995, said Township Administrator Jim Doherty. With the state’s mandate to upgrade, at stake for the “client” towns like Wantage is the likelihood of increased costs no matter what gets decided. At stake for the PSAP towns (Vernon, Newton, Hardyston, Sparta, Andover and Hopatcong) is that they have already spent a lot of their taxpayers’ money, going into debt to pay for their current operations. “If they abandon their local PSAPs now, they have in effect created a taxpayer burden to pay for a service that will no longer exist...and then have to pay for the county costs on top of that,” Doherty said. In Sussex County, 911 services are currently paid for through municipal budgets, but upgrades around the region are typically being paid for through the property tax base, Eskilson said, explaining that one possibility would be that 911 fees would be designated by a separate line on county residents’ tax bills, similar to library tax and open space tax. The PSAP consolidation report offers two possible price tags for Wantage’s share: $395,765, based on a $4 million operating budget, and $465,167, based on a $5 million operating budget. Eskilson said the proposed fees will be fine-tuned over the next few months and will most likely come down; for example, $2 million out of each of the proposed fee scenarios is for a major upgrade of the county operations center. “This doesn’t have to be included in the proposal, but the county will need to upgrade down the road either way,” he said. “How do you pare down the numbers to meet all criteria for 911 centers while making the numbers realistic? Bottom line, it’s always about the money.” Eskilson said the county’s municipalities received the report in early March, and have three to four months to review it and ask questions before responding. “We’re still looking at a two-to-three year lead time even if all agree. In the end it may not work, but that will be a lost opportunity.”
We’re just at the starting gate.” John Eskilson, Sussex County Administrator, talking about how the county will manage the mandated upgrade to its 911 system