Consolidated 911 (2)

The Richmond City Commission will meet with the Consolidated 911 Board on Tuesday, March 18, at 1 pm in City Hall.  This meeting is open to the public and citizens are encouraged to attend and ask questions.

The City asked the Consolidated 911 Board to respond to a number of questions prior to the meeting.  The following responses where printed in the Richmond Register on March 14.  To save space, the paper printed the responses in abbreviated form.


• What are the sources of revenue for the joint dispatch center? What will it cost the city of Richmond?

For the first part of the question, the answer is: from 911 telephone service charges on cell and land-lines.

The joint center receives a service charge from all cell phones billed to Madison County residences. The center has anticipated revenues of $160,000 per fiscal year from this funding source.

The center also receives a service charge of $3.50 per month from all land-line phones from all Madison County residents living outside the limits of Richmond. The center has anticipated revenues of $759,600 per fiscal year from this funding source.

The second part of the question; what will it cost the city of Richmond, would require additional information to answer, such as — what are the revenue sources for Richmond? What are the personnel costs, equipment/maintenance costs, telephone system costs and others?

 • Will the citizens of Richmond be fairly represented?

Absolutely! The center is responsible to provide the best possible service to all citizens and agencies. The city of Richmond will have representatives on the 911 board and will have a say in all center functions. The original proposed makeup of the board would provide for two voting members from Richmond, Police Chief and Fire Chief, with one at-large, non-voting member appointed by the Richmond Mayor. The only restriction is the requirement by NCIC regulations that the board must be composed of at least 51 percent law enforcement.

 • What kind of back-up system is in place and will that change if Richmond joins?

KSP Post 7 is the back-up for the consolidated center, due largely to their ability to accept 911 cell calls. If Richmond joins, this should not change, but it would need to be evaluated by the 911 board.

 • What will be the cost of moving operations?

Until we have more specific information into the current operations of the Richmond center that question cannot be fully answered. The cost of combining the centers of Madison County and Berea was less than $50,000. We would anticipate the cost of moving equipment from the Richmond center to be similar.

 • Will all Richmond telecommunicators keep their jobs by moving to the joint center?

This is a difficult question to answer without additional information. If Richmond should join, the board will be revised and the new board would need to make that determination. Although every effort will be made to provide a place for all Richmond employees, the board has a responsibility to act in a fiscally sound manor.

To read the complete story, go to http://www.richmondregister.com/localnews/local_story_074120301.html

The complete text of the responses to the questions are available here as a Word document.