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News
Funding issues stall dispatch center expansion : News : Oswego Ledger-Sentinel : Hometown Newspaper for Oswego and Montgomery, IllinoisFunding issues stall dispatch center expansion
| Cost sharing formula an issue for Oswego, other municipalities
| by Matt Schury
| 12/10/2009
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Seven months after a consulting firm recommended expanding Kendall County's emergency dispatching center and implementing cost sharing measures, members of the KenCom executive board said they are still not ready to vote on the issue.
The board met again last Thursday and was expected to vote on a measure that would implement a cost sharing formula for the operations budget among the three police agencies and six fire districts that use the dispatching service. The Kendall County Sheriff's also uses the service but is not included in the current proposal.
KenCom Board Chairman Greg Witek said the vote was also pushed back to the board's next meeting in February because there was not a representative from Plano at the meeting. Plano Mayor Bob Hausler represents Plano with alternate member Melody Herreid.
Witek said he wanted all the board members present when a vote is taken.
"Without the majority of members of KenCom board voting to adopt this model, or whatever model is in place by then, we are going to be at a standstill on the work being done downstairs," Witek said talking about the expansion plans. "I think the goal on the (Feb.) 25th meeting is to bring forth some (cost sharing) formula to potentially be voted on."
KenCom is currently funded by the county's general fund and a 75-cent monthly surcharge on county residents' telephone bills. The center takes 911 calls from municipal police departments and fire districts as well as the Kendall County Sheriff's office.
'Maxed out' space
Plans to expand KenCom came after a consulting firm recommended what Kendall County would need to do to modernize the 20 year old dispatching service that operates out of a space on the second floor of the Public Safety Center in Yorkville.
"The physical space where the dispatchers run is completely maxed out," Witek said after the meeting.
However, the impasse has to do with cost sharing measures.
"We are trying to get the parties to agree to cover anything over and above the current funding level of KenCom and how it would be spread out," KenCom director Dave Farris said.
The proposed operating budget would be split between police and fire agencies that make up KenCom with police departments contributing a total of 85 percent of costs and fire districts covering the other 15 percent.
Farris said the initial 85/15 percent spilt was suggested by the consulting firm.
"The percentage of work load-the 85 (from police) and 15 percentage of work load (from fire) is pretty common among other (dispatching) agencies throughout the state," Farris said.
All of the fire districts in the county have verbally supported the move to expand and share costs but police departments in Yorkville, Plano and Oswego have yet to commit to a cost sharing formula.
Representatives from those municipalities have all said because of the economy that they weren't sure how they could fund what the board is proposing.
Broken down by police agencies, Oswego Police Department would cover 63.9 percent of the police share, Yorkville would cover 19.2 percent and Plano would cover 16.7 percent.
Among the six fire district shares, Oswego fire district would cover 46.2 percent of the costs, Bristol-Kendall would cover 23.7 percent, Little Rock Fox would contribute 13 percent, Sandwich would cover 11.6 percent, Newark would contribute 3.8 percent and Lisbon-Seward would contribute 1.4 percent.
Those proposed percentages come from a three year average of calls the dispatching center takes from each agency, Farris said.
He added that the proposal is lacking figures because KenCom won't know what the financial impact will be until the agencies agree on the formula.
The dollar amount to be plugged in, Farris added, depends on what level the County Board is going to fund KenCom and how much over the funding level is needed to run the organization.
"The cities want the county to fund it 100 percent and the county wants to cap its costs so until there is some movement or agreement, there is not much else we can say or do," Farris said.
Yorkville Police Chief Harold Martin expressed his concern at the meeting over approving the formula without having an idea of how much it would cost.
"We would have a problem with that (formula)," Martin told Witek.
Martin added that they can't project what they are willing to fund in the future.
"We, as a city, when we see this dollar figure we will sit down and say what we can fund," Martin said.
Witek explained that "essentially what we would do is take the existing intergovernmental agreement between all the municipalities or agencies that created KenCom and add a couple of paragraphs that talk about additional new expenses that as yet unknown. In fact there are no new expenses on the books for this year or 2010 fiscal year that start for us in May."
Farris pointed out that the budget would only change when they decide to add more personnel. Currently KenCom is approved for 26 employees but four of those positions are unfilled.
"When you talk about the operating budget, those agencies might-and might is the operative word here-not see those costs being passed on to their agencies for a couple of years," Farris said.
Farris said that the budget with 26 employees is the budget going into 2011.
"Through 2011 the county would continue to fund KenCom and what we are talking about with this formula is when we need a 27, 28 or 29th body. It would be driven by the needs of the entities," Farris said.
A county owned building
The county currently contributes about $1.44 million, Farris said, to KenCom's budget. He added that the County Board is considering capping their amount if there is a cost sharing measure approved.
The initial budget laid out in May had the operations budget paid for through a combination of county contributions and Emergency Telephone Service (ETS) board contributions and the building expansion and the equipment needs (estimated at over $4 million) funded by the police and fire agencies contributions.
In September, Kendall County Sheriff Richard Randall proposed the agency move into the basement of the Public Safety Building in Yorkville at a cost of $800,000 instead of building a new facility.
The current budget shows the agencies paying for the operations and the ETS board paying for the renovations.
"One of the suggestions on the table is to leverage what money is in the current emergency telephone system budget and take a loan on the construction and renovation and use the money the ETS board has to make payments on that," Farris said.
Based on that model he said there would not be a cost to any of the agencies for the move to the basement.
There are some capital reserves under the telephone system board, Farris mentioned, that could be used to renovate the space so that would not flow out to the agencies and that space could potentially last 10 to 15 years before a decision would have to be made on whether to move out.
However, in order to proceed with that renovation they need the blessing of the county which owns the building.
"It's a county owned building so we can't just go downstairs and start throwing up brick and mortar," Farris said. "It's up to the county to allow us to use this space and then we have to figure out who can pay for it and whether we have to lease the renovated space from the county or if they can pay for it directly."
Witek said KenCom is also unable of to finance the renovation work, due to state statute.
To get around this , the county would have to finance the cost of the renovation and the agency would pay the county back in rent.
"The county is unable to provide that without a revenue sharing agreement moving forward," Witek said. "We are at a standstill."
Witek mentioned after the meeting that if they could come to an agreement, the next step would be hiring an architect and expanding into the basement.
"The county has said 'we're not willing to go ahead with this project until everybody on the KenCom board understands-when we need more personnel and when we need to expand-that there will be a cost sharing formula in place,'" he said.
The board has, numerous times, tried to put a deadline on a vote in the six months since the report came out but has been pushed back.
"We've already had four drop dead dates," Randall said. "If you want to participate with KenCom let us know. If you don't, that's one part of the puzzle we don't have to fund."
Public safety sales tax still being mentioned
Another proposal mentioned has been for the county to use funds from its Public Safety sales tax to cover KenCom.
In 2001, voters approved a referendum to impose a one-half percent sales tax rate increase on retail goods purchased in Kendall County to help pay for public safety expenses.
The police departments have mentioned using money from the public safety sales tax to fund the expansion. Martin brought up the idea at the meeting again.
"I keep saying-and you guys say no-that (the answer) is the public safety sales tax," Martin said.
However, Kendall County Board member Nancy Martin says that money is already allocated.
"Anything that we do-with the courthouse over there, that state's attorney's office, the judges, the extra courtrooms, is all with public safety sales tax," Martin said. "It's a concept, Harold, that you either have to agree or not agree to."
Oswego representative Judy Sollinger, who sits on the Oswego Village Board, said they also support using the Public Safety Sales tax to offset the budget. She explained that Oswego Police Chief Dwight Baird had concerns that because Oswego generates so much public safety sales revenue from its stores that they should not be contributing additional funds.
She also mentioned that they still have a problem with the fact that calls are allocated differently in different towns.
"For example, Oswego calls in for lunch or getting out of a call and some people are only calling in for emergency-type things," Sollinger said.
At a previous finance, meeting Plano Police Chief Steve Eaves proposed a cost sharing based half on population and call volume, Witek mentioned. However, he and board member Larry Nelson said when they looked at call volume and population, cities with larger populations tended to generate more calls.
Randall stressed the importance of a single county-wide dispatching service.
"I guess we took a step out in faith 20 years ago to do this operation and nobody knew what it was going to cost and how big it was going to grow to," Randall said.
The idea, he added was to have all the entities contribute.
"And as we grow, the money is going to have to grow," he said. "We all have to do it together."
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