Southwest IL city to contract 911 services as future of local dispatchers remains murky
Highland’s leaders have voted to contract with the Madison County Sheriff’s Department for 911 services, while the future of the local dispatchers remains unclear.
“We are just trying to follow the law,” said Mayor Kevin Hemann, referring to the state law that required consolidation of 911 centers by half.
By choosing to contract with the sheriff’s department, Highland avoided being forced into 911 services through Collinsville, according to city manager Chris Conrad. This is not ideal, he said, as Madison County already dispatches most of the communities surrounding Highland.
“This was not a decision that comes lightly,” Conrad said. “It came after a lot of discussion and it’s very difficult.”
Councilwoman Peggy Bellm said the city has “no option” with the 911 emergency calls.
“It’s mandated by the state. We have fought against it, we have campaigned strenuously against it,” Bellm said.
But the dilemma that faces them next is nonemergency calls, Bellm said: A dog barking, a power outage.
“That’s what we have to figure out how we are going to handle,” she said.
Conrad said he has surveyed other municipalities, and could only find one that kept its local dispatchers to handle calls and procedures other than 911. All others disbanded, especially after a wrongful death court case in East Joliet centering on confusion between two dispatch centers that delayed medical help for a woman who later died.
But Courtney Yearian, who spoke on behalf of the dispatchers at the Oct. 4 meeting, said it’s important to have local telecommunicators on staff.
“They can’t know our community the way we know it,” she said. “We live here and we raise our families here.”
Yearian said 911 calls make up approximately 2.6% of the telecommunications’ trackable workload. Most of their work involves non-emergency calls, officer-initiated calls, walk-ins that result in a call for service, and more, she said.
“Full consolidation will change the services provided to the citizens and our responders drastically,” she said.
Yearian and other dispatchers have said they believe the decision has been made and they will be laid off at the first of the year. At least two employees have already accepted a severance package, Yearian said.
Trying to come up with best solution possible
Meanwhile, Bellm said the rumors around town are “just pathetic.”
“People are being told they won’t have 911 assistance, that calls will be dispatched from Chicago,” she said. “It’s so disheartening and so frustrating. We are trying to come up with the best solution we can.”
The vote Oct. 4 was solely to contract with Madison County for 911 operations; however, the ordinance indicated the city would save approximately $236,000 a year without the dispatchers on staff.
“Nobody likes change, and here in Highland, we’ve got a little German stubbornness,” Bellm said. “We don’t like it when someone tells us what to do ... We’re accustomed to taking care of ourselves. Unfortunately our 911 calls have been taken away from us, and there’s nothing we can do about that.”