Oakland County Sheriff’s dispatchers will continue handling Oxford’s police and fire calls for the next three years.

Last week, both the village council and township board unanimously approved dispatch service agreements with the county that begin April 1 and end on March 31, 2021.

County dispatchers have been answering and dispatching all 9-1-1 and police-related calls in the village since November 30, 2016. The village had operated its own dispatch center for many years before closing it and contracting with county as a cost-saving measure.

The current service year, ending March 31, is costing the village a total of $31,115.

Under the new contract, the village will experience slight cost increases over the next three years. Oxford will pay $32,050 for April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019 followed by $33,010 for April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020 and $33,400 for April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021.

Since taking on the village as a client, the county has dispatched a total of 6,595 calls for the police department.

Overall, Police Chief Mike Solwold is satisfied with how things have been going since the switch to county.

“I think any time you change anything, there’s going to be some bumps in the road, but . . . we have good communication (with county) and we got the problems rectified professionally,” he told this reporter.

Solwold likes the fact that when he leaves a message for the county folks, they call him back “right away” and they’ve even been willing to meet him at his office, so he doesn’t have to drive to Pontiac.

“I haven’t had any issues with these guys. They’re easy to work with,” he said. “They’ve been nothing but a professional organization. I can’t thank them enough for providing that service.”

The bottom-line to Solwold is “we’re making it work.”

“You can throw anything at us and we will make it work,” he said.

Although he did not comment during the village meeting, Councilman Erik Dolan did speak about the dispatch switch at the township board meeting the next night, which he attended as a resident.

“When you consider the economic factors,” Dolan said, “the change (to county), in my opinion, was essentially a no-brainer.”

“There really was, financially, no other (alternative) in our circumstances,” he told the township board.

Prior to contracting with county, the village’s dispatch budget for the 2016-17 fiscal year was $338,300, of which $300,000 was slated to come from the municipality’s general fund.

Speaking as someone who’s been employed as a public safety officer for the City of Oak Park since 1996, Dolan told the township board, “There are going to be issues with any communications system.”

“You have a situation where there’s a sender and a receiver and if that message is not received exactly as it’s sent, regardless of who’s doing the service, you’re going to experience potential issues,” he explained.

But he noted that Mel Maier, the sheriff’s chief of communications, has been “exceptional” to work with and the county has been “responsive” whenever there’s been an issue.

Since April 2014, the township has contracted with the county to dispatch all of the calls for the Oxford Fire Department, which serves both the township and village.

Under the new contract, the township will pay $57,307 for April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019 followed by $59,019 for April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020 and $60,789 for April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021.

The amount fire departments pay is based on the average number of calls for service during the previous three-year period.

In Oxford’s case, the department had a total of 5,645 calls for service from Oct. 16, 2014 to Oct. 16, 2017, which equals an annual average of 1,882 calls.

That average then gets multiplied by the per-call dispatch rate set by the county Board of Commissioners.

It’s currently $29.37 per call.

The per-call rates for the next three years are as follows – $30.45 beginning April 2018; $31.36 beginning April 2019 and $32.30 beginning April 2020.

When township officials asked Fire Chief Pete Scholz about his experience with county, he replied, “We have had some issues from time to time,” but both sides work together to determine what the problem is and fix it.

“You feel they’re listening to those concerns and addressing them?” asked Treasurer Joe Ferrari.

“I would say the majority of them, yes,” Scholz replied.