By Edward D. Murphy, Portland Press Herald
Original publication date: March 3, 2011

Portland, Maine — South Portland and Portland will consolidate all of their emergency communications in a few months, so that incoming calls and outgoing directions to police, fire and medical teams will be handled in one location.

The arrangement will be the same as the current one for Cape Elizabeth and Portland: Calls for service and radio dispatching of emergency units in either community are handled by the same people, in Portland.

Portland and South Portland now share a ”public safety answering point,” in which calls from both cities are answered in Portland. If a call concerns a matter in South Portland, the Portland dispatchers route it to their counterparts in South Portland, who get more information and send the appropriate units to where they’re needed.

Under the system that’s expected to start by early summer, the South Portland and Portland communications teams will be combined and work out of one room, at police headquarters on Middle Street in Portland.

Regardless of where a call for service comes from, the units will be dispatched by the person who answers the call.

”It will be a one-stop shop for police, fire and EMS,” said Portland Fire Chief Frederick LaMontagne Jr.

Workers will have information on the units available in each city, and a computer system will recommend which equipment should be sent, although those decisions can be overridden by the dispatchers, LaMontagne said.

The consolidated system has been a long time coming.

First, the unions representing workers in both cities had to work out differences in contracts and matters such as seniority lists for the combined work force.

Officials from both cities had to make sure their work rules and technology were in sync, then the cities and the unions had to get together on new contracts. Contracts that allow for the consolidation are pending before the unions and the cities, but are expected to be approved soon, LaMontagne said.

The work on merging operations has taken about three years, city officials said.

In South Portland, officials are holding meetings to determine how the system will affect operations, because dispatchers sometimes have duties other than communicating with police, fire and EMS units, said Police Chief Ed Googins.

For instance, dispatchers staff the police department’s front desk and handle questions from the public, he said. With the change, the desk will be staffed only Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Googins said.

Savings, at least initially, are not expected to be great, since there will be no reduction in jobs. But Googins and LaMontagne said they expect that consolidation will reduce overtime and allow more flexibility in staffing, and that long-term savings could be more substantial.

The agreement says that any additional costs or savings will be allocated on a per capita basis, meaning most of either will be Portland’s.

LaMontagne said the two cities and Cape Elizabeth are willing to consider teaming up with other towns and cities, but municipalities would have to consider the costs – such as buying compatible software and communications equipment – before determining whether they would save money.

About the Author
Staff Writer Edward D. Murphy can be contacted at 791-6465 or at [email protected].

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