MI to pay $1.25M for 911 service

Island joins Eastside cities to build center in Bellevue by 2009

By J. Jacob Edel
Mercer Island Reporter

City Councilmembers have decided to join a new regional super-dispatch center with more than a dozen other Eastside communities and pay $1.25 million over the next five years as a principal partner.

By the middle of 2009, the Island’s 911 calls should be re-routed to a new dispatch center set for construction near Bellevue City Hall. The facility will be called the Northeast King County Regional Communications Center, or NORCOM. It will be a nonprofit organization composed of 15 cities and agencies designed to handle the increasing volume of emergency calls on the Eastside.

Despite getting the support from City Council last Monday, Police Chief Ed Holmes had received some bad news earlier that night. The majority of the grants being sought to help fund NORCOM with federal monies were not awarded by the state. The new dispatch agency was denied both a $2.7 million and $1 million grant to help fund the $5.1 million worth of technology needed to operate the facility.

The project has, however, received $750,000 in state funding for the technology costs, and there is a $400,000 grant that Congress could award. The cities should know if the project will receive that money by the end of the year, according to Diane Carlson, the director of intergovernmental relations for Bellevue.

The agency will be in a better position to acquire some grants next year, Carlson added, since NORCOM will be official. Mayor Bryan Cairns said he and his fellow Councilmembers believe NORCOM is the way to go for the city’s dispatch service and understood that the grants would be sought again next year.

For the first six months of the center’s operation — the target start date is July 1, 2009 — the increase in cost to use NORCOM instead of Kirkland and Bellevue to dispatch the Island’s police and fire calls would be $86,383.

Earlier this year, the Council also set aside the $611,000 needed for the following three years of operating costs.

The city currently pays just over $320,000 a year for dispatch services, with $215,000 going to Kirkland for police calls and $105,000 to Bellevue. Under the current system, all emergency calls are picked up by dispatchers in Kirkland, which has its own station reserved for Island calls. If the call requires the fire department, it is transferred to Bellevue. MIPD police officers are dispatched from the Kirkland center.

City staff told the Council that the initial large investments and higher operating costs would be offset by avoiding technology replacements that would be needed in both Bellevue and Kirkland when their dispatch centers become outdated in the future.

NORCOM will acquire the current assets from Bellevue and Kirkland, which include dispatch consoles, radio equipment, computers and hardware to reduce the costs of starting up the new center. At the city’s 8.5 percent share, the $119,348 cost will be spread out over seven years at an annual cost of $17,050.

The new NORCOM facility plans for 89 full-time employees, with 37 dispatchers and 29 call-takers making the bulk of the staff. The cost to Mercer Island, as all other principal agencies, will be based on call volume. The Island’s estimated share is 8.5 percent, according to city staff. Bellevue and Kirkland combined make up 70 percent of the center’s costs. Mercer Island will be the fourth largest contributor, behind Redmond.

Mercer Island began outsourcing its dispatch services in 2004, after it closed its own dispatch center because of the increasing costs of keeping it staffed and upgrading it with newer technologies. Before closing the doors, city staff explored its options and determined it had three possibilities; stay the same, upgrade its facility or pay someone else to do it for them.

“The additional start-up costs and the annual operating costs increase are a part of NORCOM,” City Manager Rich Conrad said. “But the real key is the cost avoidance associated with the alternatives, which are to go back in the dispatch business ourselves or contract with somebody else. In both cases, the city would pay substantially more than with NORCOM.”

Comment on this story.

COMMENTING RULES: We encourage an open exchange of ideas in our online community, but we ask you to follow our guidelines for respecting community standards. In a nutshell, don't say anything you wouldn't want your mother to read.