There are two 911 call centers in Winnebago County, one for the county and one for the City of Rockford.
The city and county continue to look at ways to be more efficient and collaborative, and one thing that is moving forward is consolidation of the two call centers.
The fire department says it’s focused on technology first, and that could take as long as 18 months, but if the two centers combine, Fire Chief Derek Bergsten says it’s the citizens who benefit.
“The biggest thing that citizens would have is they would have one answering point. They make one phone call, all the 911 calls come to one location, you don’t have to be transferred, it will be handled more efficiently and quickly, and then have less chance for errors,” said Bergsten.
Bergsten says there would still be the same number of dispatchers, so it’s not necessarily a cost-saving measure.
#1 by otis morgan on July 20, 2017 - 10:19 AM
It seems that it is true that history is circular. Originally Rockford Police, Fire and Sheriff all had their own call answering and dispatch operations. Then back in the 70’s the city and county public safety consolidated Police, Sheriff, Jail, coroner, records and 9-1-1 answering/dispatch services into one Public Safety building. The rationale was to have city police and sheriff police in the same building to work together more closely, A few years back the county decided to move out of the PSB into a stand alone “Justice Center” for the Jail and Sheriff. County has it’s own 9-1-1 center as does the city. The city 9-1-1 police, fire, ems center is presently located in a former fire station. County 9-1-1 is in a remote facility, originally built so as to have an alternate site. Rockford police are moving out of the old PSB into three district stations (district three also housing command and training). Now the fire chief (9-1-1 center director) wants to consolidate all 9-1-1 into his (city) center. The point here is that this is not a new idea! It existed prior and worked really well. 9-1-1, records, jail, coroner, police and deputies across the hall from each other. There is a new Sheriff and Police Chief who seem to be working at working together. Time will tell. Establishing again one 9-1-1 center is absolutely the way to go!