News

Steuben County 911 budget increased

Posted December 11, 2007 10:00 pm

Mary Perham

Problems keeping dispatchers at the Steuben County 911 Center are costing the county at least an extra $100,000 and maybe twice that much in payroll and overtime this year.

The county Finance Com-mittee Tuesday approved giving 911 an additional $100,000 to cover overtime and payroll expenses after hearing a request from 911 Coordinator Tim Wixom. The outlay is to pay for added payroll expenses to the end of the year.

<tbody>

<tr>

</tr>

</tbody>

</table>

<tbody>

<tr>

</tr>

</tbody>

</table>

The request must be approved by the full board when it meets Monday. It is the second request from Wixom this year for money to pay for extra overtime and payroll costs.

Wixom told the committee the center has not been fully staffed almost from the day it opened. The center became operational in May 2005, with a dispatch staff of 25.

The center is typically short by four dispatchers, Wixom said. He blamed the shortage on a lack of understanding of what the job entails.

<tbody>

<tr>

</tr>

<tr>

</tr>

</tbody>

</table>

"They come in, find out they have to work nights, (staggered shifts)," Wixom said. "It's not the glitz and glamor they were expecting."

Vacancies are filled by part-time dispatchers and overtime, he said.

Faced with a chronic shortage of dispatchers, the county held ongoing training classes for candidates, and put the newly trained dispatchers on a waiting list for vacancies, Wixom told the committee.

<tbody>

<tr>

</tr>

<tr>

</tr>

</tbody>

</table>

The county also received permission from the state to hold two Civil Service tests to increase the number of candidates, county Administrator Mark Alger said.

The classes have meant more stable levels of staffing recently, Wixom told the committee. But earlier shortages resulted in substantial overtime, with one two-week pay period this year logging 360 hours of overtime. More recently, overtime has dropped to 172 hours in a two-week period, Wixom said.

The starting wage for dispatchers is $11.85 per hour, with overtime generally paying 1.5 times more, according to county Personnel Officer Robert Biehl.

<tbody>

<tr>

</tr>

<tr>

</tr>

</tbody>

</table>

The department's $1.1 million payroll budget this year included $50,000 for overtime. By mid-year, that was increased to $175,000. The latest request for $100,000 more is for both overtime and payroll.

Alger said the increase this year should not affect the 2008 budget.

Article Categories
News