Next week, Blaine County officials will present their preferred plan for paying the salaries and benefits of emergency dispatchers.
In exchange for funding six emergency dispatchers at its new consolidated dispatch center in Hailey—the minimum number needed to cover incoming emergency calls only—the county will ask the other dispatch users to say how much extra service they want.
"Our partners need to figure the rest out," Blaine County Commissioner Tom Bowman said.
For the county, the annual cost of funding those six dispatchers would come out to $401,850. That level of funding would cover 911 calls as well as administrative calls generated by the Blaine County Sheriff's Office.
The county will present the funding formula during a public meeting set for Tuesday, Dec. 16, at 5:30 p.m. The meeting, which will include representatives from the county and other users of its consolidated dispatch service, will be held in the upstairs meeting room at the Old Blaine County Courthouse in Hailey.
During a special Blaine County Commission meeting Thursday morning, the commissioners discussed three funding alternatives put together by County Commissioner Angenie McCleary and County Administrator Mike McNees. The commissioners' preferred alternative was among the three strategies laid out.
In recent months, McCleary has become the county's point person working to keep all sides in the ongoing dispatch-funding dispute talking with one another. The squabble stems from an announcement last June by Hailey and Bellevue leaders that they couldn't help fund dispatcher salaries because of significant revenue shortfalls.
In the months since their initial refusal, Hailey and Bellevue officials reluctantly agreed to contribute a portion of the amount the county had requested to help fund the salaries of 12 to 13 dispatchers, but only for fiscal 2009. Left hanging was the question of how the estimated $835,000 or more annual price tag would be paid after that.
The county would like to see the dispatch center fully staffed with 13 dispatchers. Under that scenario, the total cost—including the roughly $400,000 covered by the county—would come out to $975,095, based on county figures.
Like Bowman, McCleary said the six-dispatcher funding plan was the preferred alternative she'd like to present to the other dispatch funding partners—Ketchum, Sun Valley, Hailey, Bellevue and the Wood River Fire and Rescue and Carey Rural fire departments.
"I think that is sufficient and generous," she said.
Under the county's plan, each user's annual funding share would be calculated on the basis of the previous year's call volumes.
