Excerpts from MySuburbanLife.com:
The city of Woodstock has approved an intergovernmental agreement to join the McHenry Police Department dispatch center. It costs about $856,000 per year to operate the existing Woodstock dispatch center, and operation costs with the new dispatch center are estimated to be $502,000 in the first year.
The city will also have to make two one-time payments for the transition, including about $144,000 for dispatch equipment and $189,000 in payouts for Woodstock dispatcher’s whose positions are being eliminated, according to the agreement.
Woodstock Police Chief Robert Lowen said the negative part of the change is that the Woodstock dispatch center staff will no longer be staffed at the police department 24/7, and new dispatchers might not be as familiar with the city.
“We’re going to lose some of that connection; however, over time the consolidated dispatch center will become more familiar with the intimacies of town,” Lowen said.
The expanded center, will be called the McHenry County Northeastern Regional Communications Center, or NERCOMM.
It currently dispatches for McHenry police, Johnsburg police, McCullom Lake police, the McHenry Township Fire Protection District, Marengo fire, Marengo rescue, and Union fire, and is in the process of expanding to also include Harvard and Marengo in response to a state mandate to cut the number of dispatch centers in half.
Eight full-time and two part-time dispatchers work at Woodstock’s dispatch center. Of the eight full-time employees, one will transfer to a records clerk position with Woodstock police, and five will become NERCOMM dispatchers, according to the agreement.
The city of Woodstock receives about $84,000 from the Woodstock Fire Rescue District to provide its dispatching services, and the district’s costs are expected to increase to $120,000 with the new dispatch agreement, City Manager Roscoe Stelford said.
For the next five years, the city will subsidize the fire district up to $36,000 per year, Woodstock Finance Director Paul Christensen said.
“The city is seeing savings, and so we’re willing to share some of our savings for the first five years to help them mitigate the increase,” Christensen said.
The agreement was approved unanimously at Tuesday’s Woodstock City council meeting.
#1 by Michael Douglass on April 10, 2016 - 9:06 PM
After the consolidation there will only be 3 dispatch centers remaining in McHenry County. They will be the McHenry County Sheriff’s Department located in Woodstock, the Southeastern Emergency Communications Center (SEECOM) located in Crystal Lake, and McHenry Police which is changing their center’s name to the Northeastern Regional Communications Center (NERCOMM). Algonquin Lake in the Hills FPD, Crystal Lake FD and Huntley FPD are now dispatched by SEECOM. Carpentersville FD is dispatched by QUAD COMM, who also dispatches for East Dundee FPD, Rutland-Dundee FPD and West Dundee FD.
I do not think there will be any numbering changes due to the switch of dispatch centers because McHenry County already has a unit numbering system in place that began in the late 1960’s or 1970’s. This system uses the McHenry County CAD, which is the same CAD used by every dispatch center in the county, so no number changes should be needed just because they are switching dispatch centers.
Under the county numbering system, each department was assigned a hundred/thousand number in alphabetical orded when this system was adopted, except for Spring Grove, which I don’t know why it’s numbering is out of order. McHenry County Departments numbers are:
100-199 Algonquin-Lake in the Hills FPD
200-299 Cary FPD
300-399 Crystal Lake FD
400-499 Woodstock FRD. When adopted these numbers were assigned to the Dorr, Seneca, Hartland, Greenwood FPD which changed it’s name to the Woodstock Rural FPD in the 1970’s. In 1993, Woodstock City FD, Woodstock Rural FPD and Woodstock Rescue Squad merged to form the current WFRD.
500-599 INTENTIONALLY NOT USED due to McHenry County Sheriffs Department using 500 numbers for their squad cars.
600-699 Fox River Grove FPD
700-799 Harvard FPD
800-899 Hebron Alden Greenwood FPD
900-999 Huntley FPD
1000-1099 CURRENTLY NOT USED. It was intentionally not used due to radio 10-Codes usage at the time when the system was adopted. However, beginning in 2007 through 2015 the numbers were assigned to the Lakewood FD, which closed and contracted for service with Crystal Lake FD on January 1, 2016.
1100-1199 Marengo FPD and Marengo Rescue Squad
1200-1299 McHenry FPD
1300-1399 Nunda Rural FPD
1400-1499 Richmond FPD
1500-1599 Union FPD
1600-1699 Wonder Lake FPD
1700 -1799 CURRENTLY NOT USED. These numbers were assigned to Woodstock City FD and Woodstock Rescue Squad prior to the 1993 merge of them with the Woodstock Rural FPD to form the Woodstock Fire Rescue District.
1800-1899 Spring Grove FPD
As listed above the first number (departments with 3 digits) or first and second number (departments with 4 digits) signify the department. The rest of the numbers were assigned as follows:
01 – Base Station Radio Signature
02 – Chief of Department
03-29 – Officers and Personnel at departments discretion
30-39 – Command Units
40-49 – Engines
50-59 – Ambulances and Squads
60-69 – Brush and Utility Units
70-79 – Tenders (Tankers)
80-89 – Aerials
90-99 – Specialty and Other Units
The last digit is at the department’s discretion. Most of the department’s use the last digit to signify what station the unit is assigned to, i.e., 1 for station #1, 2 for station #2, etc. So unit #151, is an Algonquin ambulance from station #1.
However, this is not always the case i.e., Fox River Grove has 2 ambulances at their station #1. The primary ambulance is numbered 657 and the reserve is 651. They chose to use 7 as the identifying number as a memorial to the 7 children killed in the school bus train crash that occurred in their town in 1995.
Departments with more than one of the same type of equipment in the same station usually number the unit using the next available number i.e., Algonquin has 3 stations but 4 ambulances with 2 of them housed at station #1. So they number the primary ambulance as 151 and the reserve as 154.
With ambulances and squads being in the same category also causes another numbering issue because most department’s have both types in the same station. The squad numbering is at the department’s discretion. While each of the following departments house their squads at their station #1, where an ambulance is already numbered X51, each department chose a different number for their squads. The unit number for Algonquin’s squad is 150, while Cary’s is 255 and Crystal Lake’s is 359.
Most departments currently follow this numbering system or in the process of changing when older units are replaced. I think Woodstock is the only department not currently changing their numbers to fully match the county system. So for now you will find some units that aren’t in the right numbering range. For example, in the past McHenry numbered their fire apparatus based using the third digit as the station it was assigned to. This made unit numbers 121X for station #1, 122X for station #2, etc. This means they still have older units numbered that way i.e., their squads are currently numbered 1211 and 1224, an aerial is numbered 1212 and a dive truck that is numbered 1281. Another example is Wonder Lake has engines numbered 1621 and 1622 and a squad numbered 1631.
Of course, some of the departments have also made some changes to their specific numbering contrary to the system i.e., Hebron Alden Greenwood uses 801 and Huntley uses 901 instead of X02 for their chief’s number.
Several departments use the town’s first 2 identifying digits for their station number i.e., Richmond uses Station 14 instead of 1401 as the radio number. Several towns also do the same for their shift commander, i.e., McHenry uses Battalion 12 instead of a 4 digit unit number.
I think I have this right, but, if any of this is incorrect please let me know. For a complete listing of all current McHenry County Fire Department unit numbers visit the MABAS Division 5 website at http://www.mabas5.org and click on the “Units” link on the left’s side of the page. Hopefully this provides some answers to the question.
#2 by Michael M on April 9, 2016 - 9:33 PM
Will the fire apparatus be re-numbered for the towns served by NERCOMM? How about Huntley, Crystal Lake, ALITH and Carpentersville? Will those towns consolidate?