Debate swirls over 911 dispatch center overhaul

The consensus is that Flathead Countys 911 dispatch center needs to be overhauled.

The problem is that no one really knows what to tackle and how to do it.

On Tuesday, the Flathead City-County 911 Administrative Board told its long-range planning committee to come up with the first step on how to address the issue. The committee is supposed to have that first step figured out by the boards Dec. 6 meeting.

What we have right now is not going to work in the future because of the growth in our community, said Kalispell Fire Chief Randy Brodehl, a 911 board member.

Right now, Flathead County has four 911 dispatch centers. Kalispell, Whitefish and Columbia Falls each have a 911 center to handle only police calls within their city limits. The Flathead County Sheriffs Office supervises the fourth 911 center, which handles all city and rural fire and emergency calls in the county, plus all police calls outside the three cities.

Problems exist with the main 911 centers dispatchers handling a mix of fire, ambulance and administrative duties on top of dispatching sheriffs deputies.

Board members had a dispute over whether a dispatcher handled an administrative phone call prior to making an emergency dispatch assignments. Concerns also have been raised that some fire calls are not being handled rapidly enough.

For years, the 911 board has pondered setting up a master dispatch center with its own director and an independent staff. But the board has never seriously moved forward on that idea.

Sheriff Jim Dupont supports the idea of a separate 911 center, citing the administrative problems of having all of the countys and cities ambulance and fire dispatching responsibilities being managed by strictly a law-enforcement agency.

The sheriffs office provides the lions share of the 911 centers roughly $1 million annual budget. Allocations are complicated by the 911 center budget being so intertwined with the sheriffs department budget.

As a trial balloon, 911 board chairman Fred Leistiko suggested the board explore setting up a separate property tax levy for a countywide 911 center, removing it from the sheriffs budget.

The countys 911 center located physically in the sheriffs department has 17 dispatchers. Dupont believes it should have 22 to 25 dispatchers.

The arrangements shortfalls became apparent Tuesday when a 911 board task force recommended a major upgrade of the dispatch systems software and the sheriffs department did not have money available to tackle the upgrades.

The task force also recommended:

-Placing the dispatch center in its own building under its own management.

-That dispatchers performing only emergency dispatch duties.

-That dispatchers should not handle fire, emergency services and police calls simultaneously. The task force recommended that individual dispatchers be either assigned law enforcement calls or assigned fire and emergency calls. This is to avoid confusion because there are different protocols in dispatching police as opposed to fire trucks and ambulances (fire and ambulance response times are tighter and less forgiving).

However, the main 911 board filed the task forces recommendations, and did not act on them. Thats because there is no money budgeted for any actions, and the board is unsure how it wants to proceed on overhauling the 911 operation.

Weve got to simplify this thing or its not going anywhere, said Flathead County Commissioner Gary Hall, a 911 board member.

Board members discussed hiring an emergency dispatch expert for a few months to map out how to tackle the problem.

When the board decided that its long-range planning committee led by Turner Askew, an alternate 911 board member for Whitefish should come up with a plan of attack, its directions were vague. Askew said he hopes to recommend a more precisely defined approach next month.

Reporter John Stang may be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at jstang@dailyinterlake.com