With a $2.3 million deficit still looming after a slew of
layoffs and service reductions, city officials from Gilroy continue
to explore potential costs reductions that include combining
Gilroy’s 911 call center with that of Morgan Hill.
GILROY
With a $2.3 million deficit still looming after a slew of layoffs and service reductions, city officials from Gilroy continue to explore potential costs reductions that include combining Gilroy’s 911 call center with that of Morgan Hill.
Officials stress that it is just an idea at this point, but it has far-flung repercussions, and nobody knows exactly how much money this would save each city. Still, officials from both municipalities say it is worth exploring as long as service levels won’t also drop off.
“If we had one common team of dispatchers that could be assigned where they were needed, that might improve service and save money,” Morgan Hill City Manager Ed Tewes said. “(But) we have learned there are always tradeoffs between the levels of service provided, and savings in costs.”
This fiscal year, the Gilroy Police Department expects to spend about $1.6 million of its $18.8 million budget on communications, according to city figures. The Morgan Hill Police Department plans to lay out about $1.3 million of its $11.2 million budget on the call center, according to the city’s adopted budget for fiscal year 2008-2009.
Gilroy Police Chief Denise Turner sat down with Morgan Hill Police Chief Bruce Cumming for lunch last month to discuss the idea, but that was about as far as it went, she said.
“This whole thing has sort of gotten blown out of proportion,” Turner said Wednesday. “If we actually moved forward with this, we’d still have to do a feasability study looking at locations and the different technologies.”
That means hiring a consultant to vet every aspect of the transition. That includes talking to the people who answer emergency calls in the two different cities with different computers and different structures.
“The people doing the jobs would have to be talked to,” Turner said.
One Gilroy dispatcher – who has been demoted to a part-time position amid budget cuts – hoped for as much in an e-mail.
“I would expect our administration to be much more open about this, even if they are only in a preliminary discussion phase. I find it completely unprofessional and lacking in character that they would have this information out for public knowledge prior to informing those that it will ultimately affect,” wrote Public Safety Communicator Shawn Leaver.
He added that combining center would “very well save some money,” but he also wrote it would also present logistical and training issues that administrative employees may overlook.
“I know we are just the ‘worker bees,’ but we could probably give useful input on this as we are much more in touch with how our centers operate than administration is, who at best may visit once every few weeks for 10 minutes,” he wrote.
When a person calls 911 from Gilroy or Morgan Hill, the call travels to the respective dispatch site at each city’s police station. The dispatchers then direct police, fire personnel or paramedics to the appropriate location.
Aside from inter-city cooperation, Tewes said Morgan Hill has also looked at the possibility of contracting with Santa Clara County for dispatch services, but “the potential savings would be minimal, and the potential reductions in service would be considerable.”
He noted that the workload of MHPD’s dispatch center is “substantial,” as the staff there answer more than 120,000 calls annually. Gilroy dispatchers answer about 165,000 calls a year, according to Gilroy’s Public Safety Communicator Supervisor Steve Ynzunza.
Dispatchers are also responsible for other duties – such as entering case information on computer systems, running warrant checks for officers in the field and running the records department during the graveyard shift – that would have to still be fulfilled in any combination of services between the two cities, according to Cummings and Ynzunza.
Both departments have already worked together to achieve cost savings by combining their SWAT teams and hostage negotiation teams. And beyond public safety, Gilroy and Morgan HIll have also talked about uniting recreation programs, and Haglund has also talked about offering Hollister certain environmental and emergency services.
