Is South Sound 911 measure a needed overhaul or cash grab?

Supporters of the South Sound 911 ballot measure have come up with a financial outline for the proposed emergency communications agency that shows it lowering the costs for the jurisdictions that would use its services.

Two taxes – a proposed sales tax hike voters will decide on Nov. 8 and part of an existing 911 tax – would bring in an estimated $14 million a year for the new agency.

The money would be spent on two new dispatch centers and an upgraded radio system for first responders in a majority of the county. The measure also would generate more than $5 million a year toward operating the agency.

Supporters predict that the continuing tax revenue and savings from combining the county’s three largest dispatch centers into one could return at least $6 million a year to the participating cities and towns and the county.

“We are never going to find efficiencies across agencies if we don’t pull together a regional effort,” County Executive Pat McCarthy said. “Ultimately, it will save taxpayer dollars.”

Opponents argue that the ballot proposal – to raise the sales tax by a penny on every $10 purchase – is too broad.

They call it a “fairly thinly veiled money grab” that goes beyond the only problem that needs to be fixed – upgrading law enforcement and firefighters’ radio systems because of pressing federal requirements.

A new, larger dispatching agency would not improve service to residents, opponents say.

“They are not changing the way that the system is working,” said Bobbie Williamson, a Puyallup police dispatcher for 10 years. “This is not something that is going to generate any new jobs. It’s not going to generate any new growth.”

Another obstacle for supporters has been getting the three cities that have smaller dispatch centers to join the regional effort. Officials of the Puyallup, Fife and Buckley centers say they need more information.

“We are going to wait until after the vote,” City of Puyallup spokeswoman Glenda Carino said recently. “After the vote it will be revisited, I am sure.”

NEW AGENCY

The County Executive’s Office crafted the South Sound 911 proposal after meeting with representatives of the county’s five largest police and fire agencies for 18 months.

Supporters say the proposal tackles the county’s patchwork 911 system. It would combine the three largest dispatching agencies – the Law Enforcement Support Agency, Tacoma Fire Communications Center and Pierce County Fire Comm.

The new agency would maintain or improve service levels, including call answering times, record keeping and mapping capabilities, backers say. It also could design a dispatching system to shorten the time it takes to transfer 911 calls from police dispatchers to fire dispatchers.

“We certainly want to reduce that,” Deputy County Executive Kevin Phelps said. “We are going to design dispatch centers as a system.”

Supporters say the proposal also will help meet federal deadlines requiring upgrades of the radio systems used by the Sheriff’s Department, several fire districts and smaller law enforcement agencies in the county.

If the ballot measure fails, some agencies have identified money in existing or upcoming budgets to handle the upgrades.

Without the improvements or a plan to make them, the agencies could face fines and experience larger gaps in radio coverage in several parts of the county when the new standards go into effect Jan. 1, 2013.

The new radio system would allow firefighters and law enforcement officers to communicate directly instead of going through dispatch centers, as is often done now.

It also would help with the spotty radio coverage in some parts of the county.

The sales tax increase would pay for the $35 million upgraded radio network and two new, state-of-the-art dispatch centers, which could cost $70 million.

The three current dispatch facilities are too small, too old and unable to handle the future of emergency communication, including texts, photos and video messages, backers say.

“Our law enforcement, firefighters and dispatchers make it work now,” McCarthy said. “We can make it better.”

THE MONEY

McCarthy and Phelps have been touring the county and meeting with community groups, city councils and others about the need for South Sound 911.

Phelps has fine-tuned his presentation and added more information as questions have been raised about the proposal. Among them has been the size of the new agency’s operating budget.

Recently, Phelps released a two-page financial outline for the agency.

It is based on the current budgets for LESA, Tacoma Fire, Central Pierce Fire & Rescue and West Pierce Fire & Rescue. This year the agencies will spend about $20.9 million to dispatch emergency calls.

Backers predict the proposed sales tax hike would bring in $11.8 million annually. The money would be combined with an existing enhanced 911 tax to generate $14 million of revenue a year for the construction projects and operating budget.

Of that, more than $8 million would be paid annually for 15 years to pay off the debt from the new radio equipment and dispatch centers. (The debt service would drop to $5 million a year over the next 10 years of the construction bonds.)

That would leave more than $5 million a year in available revenue.

In addition to the $5 million, Phelps predicts, the new agency could save $626,000 to $1.25 million a year, in part, by reducing employees in management, information technology, and budget and support.

Dispatcher jobs would not be cut initially but could over time, Phelps said.

“As we create the system, we will look for where the right level of staffing will need to be made,” Phelps said. “Long term, this will be a model that will reduce the total number of dispatchers that are currently involved in countywide dispatch system.”

The budget projections likely would mean participating agencies would pay less into the new agency than they do now, he said. (Each agency pays an annual assessment fee for dispatching services based on their number of calls for service.)

For example, Tacoma will pay nearly $5 million this year to LESA. Under the budget projections, that could drop to about $3.5 million. The Sheriff’s Department bill could go from about $4 million to about $2.9 million.

There would be no restrictions on how the jurisdictions could spend the money saved from lower assessment fees, Phelps said.

“They could use the money for whatever they want to, in theory, but it’s hard to envision the legislative body not it using on public safety,” Phelps said.

Lakewood City Manager Andrew Neidtiz said he doesn’t have a specific plan on how the city would spend any savings. But that’s not his entire focus.

“What is important to us is interoperability and the elimination of (radio) dead spots,” he said. “That’s not something we budget for.”

ASKING TOO MUCH?

Opponents of the measure don’t dispute the need or urgency to update first responders’ radios, but they take issue with raising the sales tax for the next 25 years to pay for a new dispatch agency and centers.

Williamson, the former Puyallup police dispatcher, argues the new agency would not change the way 911 calls are handled.

“You’re still going to a primary (call center), which is always a police agency,” she said. “If your call is for medical aid, then it will be transferred.”

Dispatching services are better when handled on a community level, said Chris McNutt, who helped author the “against” statement in the voter pamphlet and designed a website countering the proposal.

Dispatchers in those agencies know the communities and drive the roads, he said.

“I certainly don’t think a countywide, mandatory tax with no upside in quality of service, breadth of service or any cost savings is the way to do it,” he said. “It’s going to end up shutting down the services that are very good.”

Phelps said asking for money to fix just the radios wouldn’t solve the bigger problem.

“What good does it do to have great radio system and ineffective dispatch center?” he asked. “We believe they are interlocked.”

He also said the county can’t ask for a sales tax increase smaller than a penny on a $10 purchase – or one-tenth of 1 percent.

“You can’t split the tax differently,” Phelps said.

Supporters of the ballot measure have been courting officials overseeing the emergency dispatching centers in Fife, Puyallup and Buckley to get them on board.

So far, those officials have not decided whether they will shutter their dispatch centers and join the regional agency if voters approve the ballot measure.

The dispatch centers primarily handle law enforcement-related calls for a smattering of smaller jurisdictions.

Administrators say they have concerns about how much they would have to pay if South Sound 911 dispatches their police and fire calls.

“The county hasn’t provided adequate information to everyone,” said Dave Schmidt, Buckley’s city administrator.

The smaller dispatch centers already provide a high-quality service and quick response to their residents and the communities they contract for, administrators say.

“For us, it is more about assuring the affordable and the level of service isn’t diminished,” Fife City Manager Dave Zabell said. “There is some further analysis and some information we need from them to do our own analysis.”

Fife leaders have been meeting with county officials to discuss some of their concerns over the South Sound 911 initiative. The two sides are working on a memorandum of understanding to address those concerns if Fife decided to close its dispatcher center.

“It doesn’t commit us to participate,” Zabell said. “There is not sufficient information for the council to decide today.” Officials in the three cities also point out they either are upgrading their police radios or already have to meet the looming federal requirements and vendor changes that the county and several fire districts are staring down.

“They’ve actually got better service now than before in some instances,” said Schmidt, the Buckley city administrator.

IN CASE OF FAILURE

The jurisdictions that would be part of South Sound 911 also are scheming on how they would update their radios if the ballot measure fails.

“We can’t ignore one on the hopes of the other,” said Jim Sharp, the assistant chief for communications with West Pierce Fire & Rescue.

The county would issue bonds or lease equipment for the Sheriff’s Department, Phelps said. The county executive has no line in her 2012 budget proposal to pay for new radios.

“We’ll have to figure that out and come up with a financing plan,” Phelps said. “We don’t have new sources of funds to pay for it.”

West Pierce Fire & Rescue would need to replace about 70 of its 300 portable radios, as well as other devices, at a cost of $285,000 to comply with the upcoming federal standards, Sharp said.

Like Pierce County, West Pierce has no 2012 budget line to address the need. Sharp said the agency would tap a reserve fund used to replace equipment.

“We have a significant amount of money that we can draw from,” he said.

Some of the smaller fire districts would have to replace a higher percentage of their radios and find the money to do it quickly, Sharp said.

“I don’t know that anybody has any great answers right now short of find the money,” he said.

Pierce County Fire Comm, which dispatches for West Pierce and 14 other fire districts, is using grant money to replace radios on its transmission sites and to upgrade the system’s capabilities so there is better overlap among transmission sites.

Tacoma and Lakewood’s 800-megahertz radio systems are not covered by the new federal requirements but they still must be updated because the vendor has stopped producing replacement parts and software upgrades.

Tacoma officials have said there likely is money in the city’s coffers and through the existing enhanced 911 tax to pay for the upgrade.

Stacey Mulick: 253-597-8268

stacey.mulick@thenewstribune.com

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