“Intangibles.”

That was the word used over and over again by representatives of the Oxford Village Police Department as they made a presentation to council last week regarding all the services currently provided by its in-house dispatch center.

Council is considering the idea of contracting with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office for police dispatch services as a potential cost-saving measure.

“If you’re just looking at cost, oh my goodness,” said Police Chaplain Dave Gerber. “The things that were going to lose – could lose, will lose – are far bigger.”

The proposed village dispatch center budget for the 2016-17 fiscal year, which begins July 1, is $338,300. Of that, $300,000 is coming from the village’s general fund.

The sheriff’s office proposed to provide police dispatch services to the village at a prorated cost of $23,246 for July 1 through March 31, 2017 and $31,115 for April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018.

Thoughts from the chief

Police Chief Mike Neymanowski urged council to look at the village dispatch center’s value in terms beyond dollars and cents.

He talked about the “bond” that exists between the officers and dispatchers and how “they watch over each other.”

“We have a good family here,” Neymanowski said.

He talked about how when the village was suffering revenue losses as a result of the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent economic downturn, the dispatchers and officers were willing to take pay freezes and make concessions.

“They wanted to help. They wanted to keep this thing going,” Neymanowski said.

The chief noted the village has had a local dispatch center for almost 40 years and “I think that, in itself, says something.”

“There’s a lot of chiefs out there who would love to have this local dispatch,” Neymanowski said. “I know in my heart, I really do, the people of this community want and deserve a local dispatch.”

One dispatch center, two police agencies

9-1-1 calls in Oxford Village and Lake Orion Village go to the local dispatch center.

Lake Orion closed its dispatch center because it could no longer afford to operate it.

Oxford has been receiving all of its calls since January 2014.

If it’s a law enforcement-related call, Oxford’s center dispatches officers from the village police departments.

If it’s a call involving a fire or emergency medical situation, it’s transferred to Oakland County, which dispatches the Oxford and Orion township fire departments.

Lake Orion began paying Oxford $20,000 for dispatch services two years ago. That annual payment has increased to $20,400 this year per the contract.

Oxford Village Manager Joe Young sent Lake Orion Village an April 22 letter requesting the dispatch contract be amended to increase the payment by “an additional $10,000” for the current fiscal year ending June 30 and include “an annual increase of $20,000” beginning July 1 and continuing to the end of the contract on Dec. 31, 2017.

In response, Young told this reporter Lake Orion’s council has budgeted $30,000 for its upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Neither village council has voted yet to formally amend the dispatch contract to reflect this new price, according to Young.

How many calls?

Last year, the village dispatch center received a total of 23,708 calls. Of these, 2,220 were 9-1-1 calls and 21,488 were non-emergency calls.

The center handled 7,365 calls for Oxford Village Police and 5,002 for Lake Orion Village Police.

Debbie O’Farrell, the village’s director of communications, told council that of the Oxford Police calls, dispatchers were able to resolve the issue themselves in 1,259 incidents.

“We handled the call and kept the officer out on the road that many times,” she said.

“Which is an intangible,” Gerber added.

Staffing levels

The village center is staffed by three full-time dispatchers and eight part-timers.

The three full-timers include O’Farrell, Dispatch Supervisor Tony VanHouten and Dispatch Reserve Coordinator Justin Moser.

Oxford strongly believes the single dispatcher model – where one person answers calls, obtains the necessary information and contacts first-responders via the radio – is quicker when it comes to getting public safety personnel on the road and to the scene.

A second dispatcher is scheduled during special events in the village. During emergency situations, such as severe storms, a second dispatcher can be called in to help handle calls.

More than phone calls

During the presentation, it was explained village dispatchers have other duties besides answering calls and that’s what has to be considered when comparing it to other agencies.

“It’s not call for call. It’s bigger than that,” Gerber said.

Oxford dispatchers are trained to write certain reports, so they don’t have to call officers back to the station to do it. These reports involve private property accidents, lost or found property and malicious destruction of property and larceny where there are no suspects, according to the presentation.

Currently, dispatchers handle registration and information updates for sex offenders living in the village.

The dispatchers are also responsible for a laundry list of administrative functions for the police department including requests for police reports, Freedom of Information Act requests, background security checks, missing person and runaway entries and cancellations, issuing handgun permits, ordering department supplies, subpoena processing and reporting street light outages.

Dispatchers keep an eye on the entire village complex on W. Burdick St. via a video monitoring system.

“We monitor the jail cell, the booking room, the village offices, the hallway (and) the parking lot,” O’Farrell said. “We’re in the process of moving Lake Orion’s video monitoring down here to Oxford.”

O’Farrell noted the center is looking into expanding the video monitoring to other areas in the village such as Scripter Park, the DPW garage, municipal parking lots and the M-24 corridor.

“We have the computer infrastructure already in place in our (communications) center for this,” she said. “We’re looking into (getting cameras) out in these locations (and they) will be 24-hour monitored in the dispatch center.”

Gerber pointed out the jail cell inside the police department is “another intangible” that couldn’t exist without dispatch personnel to monitor it.

The cell is where those arrested for misdemeanors, such as drunken driving, are held. Felony suspects must be taken to county jail. According to Neymanowski, a total of 105 people were arrested and processed by village police last year. Twenty-five of those arrests were for drunken driving.

“(If) dispatches closes, we’re unable to use that (jail cell) because it won’t be monitored,” Gerber said.

He explained village officers would have to transport all suspects to the county jail in Pontiac, which could involve them being out of the village for an hour or more.

“That’s an intangible that we don’t think about,” Gerber said. “So now, we’re losing time and we’re losing officers on the road.”

“It’s a big deal to be able to get our officers back on the road to do what they do, which is keep this community safe,” he noted.

In addition to all that, Oxford’s dispatchers assist with police investigations by doing database, internet and social media searches, and handling follow-up phone calls.

“We lose (local dispatch), some of those things are going to have to be done by our officers,” Gerber said. “Now, we lose patrol time . . . I don’t know how much time we’re going to lose (by) doing some of this work, but that is a consideration. It’s an intangible.”

Link to the Department of Public Works

The village dispatch center serves as the residents’ after-hours contact point for the DPW-related services such as snow-plowing, salting, repairing water main breaks and emergency water shutoffs. It does this for the DPW in Oxford and Lake Orion.

Link to the schools

“One of the things that I really like about our dispatch center is that we have direct radio communication with the school in the unfortunate event something should happen . . . and the school staff is unable to get to a phone. They have direct radio communication with us that has full patch-in capability should it be an Oakland County issue (or) whoever it is,” Gerber said. “That’s another one of the intangibles that we provide for (the) safety (of) the community.”

Reserves

In 2013, the village established a dispatch reserve program, which O’Farrell said is the “first in the state of Michigan.”

It provides the village center with trained volunteers to support existing dispatchers. It also serves as a comprehensive training program for those interested in pursuing a career as a dispatcher.

“We’ve already had six people begin the program and three have gone on to become successful dispatchers,” O’Farrell said.

She noted the reserve program “weeds out” people who are “not serious” about becoming a dispatcher.

The reserve program is paid for using training funds from the state and “there’s been no cost as far as hourly wages,” according to O’Farrell.

“The benefit to the person is they’re getting a free education, they’re getting all the hands-on experience and we’re giving them what they need to be able to go out and get a job,” she said.

O’Farrell noted she’s trying to obtain at least $200,000 in grant funding to serve as a “pool” for other dispatch centers around the state “to draw from” in order to implement this reserve program.

“Once we get it statewide, then the goal is to get it nationwide,” she said.

Small dispatch can handle big situations

Just because Oxford’s dispatch center is small, doesn’t mean it can’t handle big emergencies when they arise.

Those who made the presentation to council used, as an example, the April 2014 storm that slammed Oxford and Lake Orion with hail and straight-line winds of up to 70 miles per hour. (It should be noted there was no “tornado” as was incorrectly stated during the presentation.)

Lake Orion suffered the brunt of the storm’s wrath and experienced widespread damage.

“Our (dispatch) center received over 300 calls within two hours,” O’Farrell told council. “We had two people here on staff at that time.”

While handling these calls, O’Farrell said they realized Lake Orion “needed a lot more help than just” assistance from firefighters.

“So, we made one phone call and that was to our village manager,” she continued. “We asked permission to be able to call out the forces. We called in our entire police force staff, including all of our reserves.”

Don Brantley, superintendent of Oxford Village’s Department of Public Works, was also contacted to get his workers in the field.

“Everyone was mobilized,” O’Farrell said. “And this happened in a matter of a half-hour. Within two hours, Lake Orion streets were clear and opened up. That was pretty amazing. We’re pretty much an emergency operations center without the official title.”