Rebuilding 911 services

New emergency dispatch center part of countywide overhaul plan

Flathead County's proposed new 911 center is just one piece of a bigger picture.

But it's the key piece.

It's the piece that voters will decide whether they want to pay for. If so, other pieces will fall in place.

The Flathead City-County 911 Administrative Board is taking a bond issue of up to $6.9 million to voters on Nov. 4 to merge the county's four emergency dispatch centers into a new facility in northwest Kalispell.

If passed, the bond issue would translate to $12.48 annual increase in property taxes on a $200,000 house.

Emergency officials have mostly spoken publicly about the proposed 11,800-square-foot extra-hardened building to be constructed just east of the soon-to-be-built Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation building near Glacier High School.

"Extra-hardened" refers to specially reinforced construction designed to withstand disasters.

However, those same officials have not spoken much about the proposal's larger context.

The master plan of the county and cities' emergency officials is to:

. Build a new center that would handle current and future 911 needs. It also is supposed to be the new emergency operations headquarters for all of Flathead County and to be the depot for the county's emergency vans and trailers as well as a significant amount of other emergency equipment.

. Overhaul and update the county's entire emergency communications system from hand-held radios to mountaintop towers.

. Reorganize the county's various emergency agencies so they can function under one chain of command when troubles erupt.

All of these functions would be housed in the proposed 11,800-square-foot building.

"Our level of effectiveness is going to be enhanced by the whole project," said Mark Peck, the county's 911 project coordinator. "The building is just one part of the project."

If the referendum fails, Plan B is to cram the updated equipment for a consolidated dispatch center into the basement of the Flathead County Justice Center in Kalispell.

Mapping out the price tag can be complicated.

The $6.9 million bond issue would be part of an overall $12.63 million package.

About $5.73 million is for a countywide radio system that is more reliable, more efficient and covers more dead spots, plus computer-aided dispatch equipment and other 911-related equipment.

The 911 board has $5.239 million in state and federal grants earmarked for those purchases, plus another $491,000 set aside to equal that $5.73 million in purchases. Much of these upgrades are in anticipation of federal requirements that will go into effect by 2012.

Voters will be asked for the remaining $6.9 million for the building, which will be a combination of a 911 center, an emergency operations center and a warehouse.

Some $4.485 million would go to actual construction. The rest would pay for land, utilities, design work and red-tape costs, plus some equipment. The bond issue also includes $672,820 in contingency money to handle cost overruns.

The $6.9 million is a deliberate over-estimate.

"We high-balled it," Peck said. "We don't want to end up short."

If the bond issue passes, construction would begin next spring and likely would take 10 to 12 months.

The bonds would not be issued until the construction bids are received and a contract signed early next year - nailing down the actual costs of building the complex. Then the bond amount would be adjusted to reflect the actual costs - and taxes would be adjusted accordingly.

The $6.9 million figure is a worst-case scenario to account for all conceivable fluctuations in material costs, Peck said.

"I can confidently say we'll come in under the $6.9 million figure," Peck said.

Right now, there are four emergency dispatch centers in Flathead County.

Flathead County's 911 center - operated by the Sheriff's Office - handles law-enforcement calls for unincorporated Flathead County, plus all fire and ambulance calls in the cities and rural areas.

Kalispell, Whitefish and Columbia Falls each have dispatch centers for their own police departments.

The four centers have problems coordinating calls with the Flathead's hodgepodge of jurisdictions and levels of service.

The current dispatch equipment also is outdated.

County and city figures show that the county's 911 center handled 36,216 calls in 2005 and 52,023 in 2007.

So far in 2008, the county's 911 center has handled at least 39,000 calls and is on track to reach at least 60,000 this year. If the three city dispatch centers' calls are added, Flathead County overall could produce 100,000 calls in 2008, figures indicated.

Before hiring CTA Architects Engineers to draw up detailed plans, the 911 board was working with a rough guess that at 6,000-square-foot center would cost possibly $2.9 million.

That figure did not include setting up a emergency operations center and a equipment depot at the site, Peck said.

Peck contended the new building would save annual operating costs.

He said it would free up about 1,500 square feet in the Justice Center in which other county departments can move into - relieving them of the financial burden of leasing space elsewhere.

Consolidation would trim the number of dispatch people countywide from 35.7 full-time equivalent positions to 30, Peck said.

But that drop is not clear-cut, because many dispatchers today frequently handle other administrative duties. If they move to the new building, other government employees will have to pick up some of that work.

The new center's estimated annual operating cost of $2.137 million is roughly equal or slightly less than the combined costs of operating four separate dispatch facilities with their coordination and efficient problems, Peck said.

"In the long run, this is more cost-effective," Peck said.

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