Nicole Norfleet; David Peterson; Staff Writers, Star Tribune (Mpls.-St. Paul)

Shared 911 centers are saving for some cities but costing others. One planned for Scott County has lost momentum.

It sounded like a no-brainer when the idea first arose.

In metro-fringe rural counties such as McLeod, 911 dispatchers spend most days with little to do. In suburban counties such as Scott and Carver, a single accident on a busy highway can produce 40 calls from passing drivers — more than dispatchers can handle.

The solution: Combine efforts, saving money and providing better service.

But cries of surprise now coming from the city of West St. Paul after joining with its much bigger neighbors in Dakota County show there can be an unpleasant side to this plan. And it turns out that the rural counties that were considering joining with Scott and Carver are shrinking away before they ever get to the altar.

“The cost-benefit would probably not be there for us,” McLeod County Sheriff Scott Rehmann said.

Apparently, not everyone wins in these deals — and the little guy is often the most nervous about the change.

Still, others who’ve joined cooperative ventures are pleased so far.

Apple Valley, which joined the countywide Dakota Communications Center when it opened in 2007, used to have the oldest dispatching console in Dakota County, city Administrator Tom Lawell said. It would have cost the city a lot to upgrade its equipment.

“Had we not gone into a cooperative venture, we would have borne those costs individually within our city,” Lawell said.

Overall, Dakota’s center is on track to net an estimated $8 million in operational savings for its members by its fifth year, said Diane Lind, the center’s executive director.

Scott and Carver counties are still exploring combining their dispatch services, only a short distance away from one another in Shakopee and Chaska, Scott County Administrator Gary Shelton said.

Even there, though, he said, as promising as the idea appears, “it’s not as much about short-term savings as about long-term savings and improved service.”

A common problem, savings-wise, is that it costs something upfront to build the new, shared facility. Said Lind: “I think you really need to look at it as long-term savings because short term, every time you have a new organization you have capital costs.”

Another frequent twist is that smaller places start with lower-quality services: less-fancy technology, for instance. To join the bigger guys is to mount a fancier vehicle with better service but higher costs.

Still another vexing issue is how to apportion costs. An older, inner-ring suburb may be small on paper but cost more to police.

Dakota went from five dispatch centers around the county to one, splitting costs based on the averages number of calls the center handles from each locality.

Officials in West St. Paul say they are not happy with how much the center is costing them and what their city pays in fees based on the funding formula.

Under the center’s 2012 budget, spending for next fiscal year will increase by 4.2 percent to about $7.6 million. It paid more than $564,000 this year in membership fees.

“It’s pretty close to twice what we were paying when we were operating our dispatch center,” said John Remkus, city manager for West St. Paul.

The bigger boys are happier.

Eagan Administrator Tom Hedges said his city, with the south metro’s largest population, is saving money.

“If we had to operate our own dispatch center, we still would have to provide 24-hour, seven-day-a-week labor. … I think we’re saving tremendous capital costs by not having to provide building space [and] purchase new equipment [just for Eagan],” he said.

Over on the west side of the southern metro, McLeod County Sheriff Rehmann stressed that he, too, is all about collaboration — when it truly saves.

“We’re looking at virtual consolidation,” he said, wherein his county would join with others in sharing costly new equipment but share it from a distance.

In the end, he said, each place has its own way of working, and there’s no cookie-cutter means of cutting costs.

“Sibley County uses correctional officers [jailers] as their communications officers [dispatchers],” he said. “They have a dual role. If the communications aspect went away, they’d still have the personnel.

“So it’s things like that. Carver and Scott have dedicated 911 call-takers — a much different situation.”

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