FAYETTEVILLE -- Rural Washington County would have two more 911 dispatchers next year to answer a rising number of emergency calls under budget requests for next year given preliminary approval Monday.
About 3,000 emergency calls come in from areas outside Fayetteville and Springdale each month, according to data from Central Emergency Medical Service, the county's primary dispatcher. Ambulances alone were called to areas outside Fayetteville and Springdale almost 16,000 times in 2013, up 21 percent from 2010.
Meeting Information
Washington County Quorum Court
2015 Budget Process
• When: 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 23
• Where: Quorum Courtroom in the County Courthouse, 280 N. College Ave., Fayetteville
• On the Agenda: Budget Requests for the county election commission, assessor, treasurer, collector, clerk and other departments.
A rising population and volunteer fire departments that increasingly help with each other's emergencies mean more people are needed to pick up those calls, said Steve Harrison, assistant chief of the medical service.
"It can get very busy in that room very fast," he told the Quorum Court during its budget meeting Monday. "Any help we could get would be a real help."
The two new dispatchers would take separate 12-hour night shifts, meaning three people would be on the line during a given night instead of the current two. Together they would cost $85,000, part of a $2.1 million spending package for next year's ambulance and fire services, the coroner and the county HIV clinic that the Quorum Court approved Monday.
The panel is still going through each department's request, so no budget is set until the final vote later this year.
The $85,000 increase would bring county fire protection spending to around $850,000, or about 1 percent of the county's spending. It would be the first increase in the fire protection budget since 2008, said Chris Coker, president of the Washington County Fire Association.
A rising number of calls isn't the only factor making new dispatchers necessary, Coker and Harrison said. The county's 20 volunteer departments are working with fewer people than in the past and often rely on mutual aid agreements, or responding to each other's calls, to help each other make up the difference.
This means dispatchers have to talk to one or more callers and multiple fire departments at once, Harrison said. At night, only one other dispatcher is then available for any other calls that come in. The dispatchers get overflow calls from Fayetteville and Springdale as well.
The Quorum Court's justices of the peace endorsed the request, but with a warning: Next year's revenues to pay for all of the county's services are forecast to drop by more than 6 percent, or $5.2 million. Departments are already jockeying with each other to avoid the Quorum Court's ax.
Diane Bryant of Farmington, a Democrat, suggested just one new dispatcher, or assigning new people to the busiest times.
Candy Clark, a Fayetteville Democrat and chairwoman of the budget process, flatly rejected trimming the request.
"Our priorities!" Clark exclaimed with a tone of amazement, her voice rising. Other departments' request of hundreds of thousands of dollars for new vehicles have been approved, she said, but the emergency protection increase gets the scrutiny. "I will fight for this."
Several justices of the peace echoed the sentiment, with some telling stories of when volunteer fire departments rushed to their own homes.
"It's hard for me to vote for new employees, but in this case, we're going to cut somewhere else," said Rex Bailey, a Springdale Republican.
Budget discussions continue tonight with requests from the county election commission, assessor and other departments.
NW News on 09/23/2014