By Susan Redden
sredden@joplinglobe.com
CARTHAGE, Mo. — Despite board authorization on how the arrangement might work, no decision has been made on whether the Jasper County Sheriff’s Department will place two of its own dispatchers at the communications center run by the Jasper County Emergency Services Board.
Sheriff Archie Dunn said he is looking at that option, and also looking at re-establishing a new, separate dispatching operation in the Sheriff’s Department.
“I haven’t decided anything,” Dunn said Friday. “I’m still gathering information.”
The emergency services board on Tuesday endorsed a memorandum of understanding between the county agency and the Sheriff’s Department that would allow the sheriff use of two dispatch stations at the county’s emergency dispatch center south of Carthage. If both sides go forward with the arrangement, the sheriff would hire and pay two dispatchers to work at the county center, and would no longer pay an annual fee of nearly $111,000 to contract for dispatching by the emergency services board.
Dunn said either option will cost more than he is paying now.
“Sometimes the cheapest option is not the best, or the safest,” he said.
Control issue
Dunn said the decision was triggered by no specific incident, but because he wants to have control of the dispatchers who are sending his deputies on calls.
“When you contract anything out, you lose control,” he said. “In law enforcement, that can be frustrating and dangerous. There may be certain information that people dispatching need to pass on to deputies, and there’s no way I can really control that unless I have control of the dispatch operation.”
The county board has dispatched for the Sheriff’s Department since Jan. 1, 2005. Dunn said he sought the contract because the department needed to replace its dispatching equipment and he could not afford the expense. Department revenues began climbing in 2006, after voters approved a quarter-cent law enforcement sales tax that primarily bolsters Sheriff’s Department operation.
The sheriff said he still is gathering information, but agreed it would be costly to buy new equipment and put the dispatching operation back in the county detention center building.
The discussion comes at a time when overall county revenues are tight and the sheriff has been asked to pay from the law enforcement sales tax about $300,000 more in law enforcement expenses now being paid from the general fund.
John Bartosh, presiding commissioner, said late last month that commissioners would meet with the sheriff to discuss the request, but the meeting was never scheduled.
Bartosh on Friday said commissioners had decided instead to ask Dunn to meet with Richard Webster, county auditor, who is preparing the 2010 budget.
“He’s meeting with all the other offices, so we asked him to just go ahead and meet with the sheriff, then bring us the budget, and we’ll talk about it then,” he said.
Tax agreement
Webster on Friday said he had met with the sheriff and discussed the Sheriff’s Department budget and the county’s revenue shortfall. He said Dunn told him he would boost law enforcement sales tax spending by $54,000, to pay for the a physician who provides services at the county jail.
“He said that was always supposed to come out of the LEST budget, but it hadn’t because of some oversight,” the auditor said.
Bartosh and Webster both said Dunn had not raised the possibility of returning county dispatching to the sheriff’s office. The allocation for the contract with the emergency services board is included in the department’s draft budget, Webster added.
The sheriff said he wants to make a decision soon, so spending plans can be included in the 2010 budget.
“Right now, I’m still gathering information on alternatives,” he said.
