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.
