HAYDEN J EMRAH
WZBD.com
The Adams County Sheriff’s Department will be adding two new full-time dispatch operators to the county’s 911 emergency dispatch services, following concerns raised by Sheriff Mawhorr in the previous month’s County Council meeting.
The two new positions are to help bolster the response times and ability for the county-wide dispatch center to receive and respond to calls late into the night, making for a total of 10 full-time dispatchers – four part-time, and two administrators. For comparison, Bluffton in Wells County uses 15 full-time employees with one administrator, and Jay County uses ten full-time, three part-time and two administrators.
Currently, the Adams County Dispatch Center is only able to staff one individual at certain hours into the night, and the concern is that if this one person has to take a break of any sort during the 8-hour period where they are alone, it could be detrimental to the county’s ability to respond to an emergency.
“But with my night shift, by adding these two new dispatchers to the night shift, each squad will get another (dispatcher), so that puts three in the chair at all times. So if someone is sick, someone is on vacation, someone gets sent to do training, I’ll still have two. And that saves a lot of time of trying to find somebody (part time),” spoke Sheriff Mawhorr on the matter.
Mawhorr continued by saying that the inconsistent hours offered to the part time employees is part of the reason it can be hard to retain those positions, and that this past year has left some of the employees “burned out” amid the staffing concerns.
Adding the two new positions will cost the county around $126,000 annually for the wages and benefits to the new individuals, but the added benefit of ensuring public safety is hard to measure financially, and the county will save costs on the part-time and overtime pay used to currently staff the positions.
The county council agreed that there was a need to add on two new positions for the dispatch center, and approved the request.
Also on agenda for the December council meeting in regards to the sheriff’s office was the approval of an updated 911 dispatch software, which was discussed in November’s meeting. The software will cost $68,252 and is funded through ARPA grant money.