After more than a half-year of intense wrangling, the Blaine County Commission has approved a funding plan for the salaries and benefits of emergency dispatchers. The plan cuts the shares that Hailey and Bellevue must contribute by about half from an earlier proposal.
During their regular meeting on Tuesday, commissioners Angenie McCleary and Tom Bowman voted to authorize a complicated funding formula that breaks down the shares each fire district and municipality will be charged for emergency dispatch services. Commissioner Larry Schoen wasn't present for the vote.
The new plan would compute the funding shares for each dispatch user by the number of addresses in each jurisdiction, rather than by a projected number of calls as under the original proposal. The new plan was developed by Blaine County Administrator Mike McNees with the help of other county and city officials.
Despite everyone's best efforts to find a funding solution that would please all dispatch users, no such plan has been discovered, McNees said. He described the funding plan as a "defensible, fair method."
"There is no perfect model," he said. "This is as good as you're going to get."
The squabble stems from the announcement last June by Hailey and Bellevue leaders that they couldn't help fund dispatcher salaries at the county's new consolidated dispatch center in Hailey because of significant revenue shortfalls.
In the months after their initial refusal, Hailey and Bellevue officials reluctantly agreed to contribute about a quarter of the amount the county had requested to help fund the salaries and benefits of dispatchers, but only for the 2009 fiscal year.
The other dispatch users included in the funding plan are Ketchum, Sun Valley, Wood River Fire & Rescue and the Carey Rural Fire Department.
Throughout months of back-and-forth arguments among the dispatch users and nearly non-stop meetings, county officials have held firm on their desire to see the center staffed by 13 dispatchers. That would allow for the presence of at least two dispatchers at all times and up to three during the busiest periods on Fridays and Saturdays.
The funding plan will now be forwarded to the rest of the dispatch users for their consideration. The county hopes to receive answers by the end of February to give everyone time to factor the costs into their 2010 budgeting process.
The county has said it will provide emergency 911 dispatch services to any user that chooses to opt out of the funding scenario. Under that situation, the county would not cover non-emergency, administrative calls for things like license plate checks.
Here are the approximate funding shares envisioned for the largest dispatch users in the plan approved on Tuesday:
· Blaine County: $401,850
· Ketchum: $164,173
· Sun Valley: $112,098
· Hailey: $138,898
· Bellevue: $28,569
· Wood River Fire and Rescue: $28,603
Under the original funding scenario, Hailey was asked to contribute about $250,000 per year, while Bellevue was asked to contribute $67,000.
During the meeting, Hailey City Administrator Heather Dawson asked the commissioners to delay their vote on the new plan so the other dispatch users could go back and discuss the plan with their citizens. But Bowman and McCleary rejected that request.
"I think there has been a lot of opportunity to comment," McCleary said.
Prior to the vote, Bowman said that if the other dispatch users fail to agree on the new funding plan, he'll push to have the old formula that allocates the costs based on calls for service in each jurisdiction reinstated.
Ketchum Fire Chief Mike Elle spoke out in favor of the funding formula presented by McNees. He also reminded everyone that emergency dispatch is a life-safety issue.
"A choking baby doesn't have five minutes to wait for help to arrive," he said. "This has to go forward."
Jason Kauffman: jkauffman@mtexpress.com
