By ROBERT LINNEHAN | The Voorhees Sun
The township is taking steps to merge its police department’s dispatchers with the Camden County system, Mayor Michael Mignogna said. The township has been toying with the idea since the late ’90s, representatives said, and 2010 seems to be the year to move forward on the issue.
The state has strongly recommended that townships engage in shared services to save funds, Mignogna said, and integrating into the county dispatch system makes sense for Voorhees.
The Voorhees Township Committee has seriously been researching the integration for the past two years, he said, and the savings would be significant. The township would likely save about $400,000 a year if merged with the county dispatch.
Currently, 31 of 37 municipalities in Camden County have their police dispatch duties handled by the county dispatch service, he said.
“If Voorhees incorporates into the county system, none of our dispatchers would lose their jobs because the county has agreed to hire them. Our ongoing investigation suggests that Voorhees could save approximately $400,000 a year by moving to county dispatch,” he said. “We are continuing to work with the county to make sure our systems are compatible. We will continue our investigation because we want to make sure the safety of our police officers and residents is not compromised by such a change.”
When asked for comment, the police department referred all inquiries to Township Administrator Larry Spellman.
Spellman said the township has a tentative date of April 1 for the integration, but that likely would not be met because the current director of the county dispatch is leaving to take another position with the state.
The new director would have to be brought up to speed with the township’s plan, Spellman said, and would need to attend a committee meeting to field questions from police department representatives.
“It’d be a shame to not look at this hard and serious for as long as it takes. You don’t get many chances to save that kind of money,” Spellman said. “Right now if you make a phone call for a fire or our ambulance, it goes through the county anyway.”
The county has assured Voorhees that its current dispatch employees would have jobs at the county dispatch department if the merger goes through, Spellman said.
A dispatcher would still remain in the police department until 8 p.m. every night, 5 p.m. on Sunday nights, to handle walk-up reports and complaints from the public. After 8 p.m., a 24-hour safe room would be available with a direct phone line to the county dispatchers for people looking to file a report.
“There really isn’t much demand for the police station at 2 a.m. in the morning, or 9 p.m. at night for that matter,” Spellman said, referring to research the township had completed. “Our police staffing isn’t going down, people should know that.”
The county and the township need to work through some compatibility issues regarding software and hardware, but Mignogna said that would not be too difficult.
“Our residents currently pay county taxes which include costs for county dispatch. In Camden County, 31 of the 37 municipalities are already in the county dispatch system,” he said. “Approximately 75 percent of all emergency calls come from cell phones and these calls already go to the county system. Also, all calls for fire and ambulance services already go to the county system.”
