CCECC services for Deuel could cost $110K

Cheyenne County Emergency Communication Center services could cost more than $110,000 for Deuel County, Heidi Gillespie, CCECC director, said.

In August, Gillespie reported to the CCECC advisory board Deuel County was considering moving its dispatch services from Keith County to Cheyenne County.

The cost, though, may be prohibitive for Deuel County, Gillespie said.

“Initially I was asked for a ballpark figure, and the ballpark figure was off by quite a bit honestly from the research I found,” she said.

In building a cost allocation model, Gillespie referred to regional, state and national sources.

CCECC works with two national associations: NEMA (National Emergency Management Association) and APCO (Association of Public Communications Officials).

“Those two entities are the vanguard, setting the standard for public safety agencies. Communication centers, specifically,” she said. “They have formats and templates and training, and all of those things were taken into consideration when building this cost allocation model.”

The cost was determined using a “multi-faceted approach,” Gillespie said, particularly focusing on two tiers: population and calls for service.

“You want to base it on the (general) population of each entity you’re dispatching for, and secondarily we base it on the calls for service,” she said. “The population is something that for the most part doesn’t fluctuate a lot from one year to the next. The calls for service certainly can.”

In both regards, Deuel County has numbers comparative to Cheyenne County.

“We have approximately the same amount of public safety agencies from one county to the next,” Gillespie said.

The cost, though, is higher than Deuel County had anticipated for services.

“That cost is different than the ballpark figure I gave them initially. It’s more than twice as much. Based on their population, this is a high figure, Gillespie said. “They expected something more in line with what they’ve been paying up to this point.”

She added, “This is definitely more.”

If Deuel County elected to move their service to Cheyenne County, the CCECC would not need to add more staff, Gillespie said.

“Staffing is the one thing I would not have to adjust at this point,” she said. “I am fully staffed right now and the difference, the influx for calls right now, would not necessitate me adding personnel, at least initially.”

The CCECC, though, would likely need to reorganize its work assignments, Gillespie said.

“I typically try to have two dispatchers on duty for the highest traffic times, which … you can anticipate it with a moderate degree of accuracy,” she said. “If I got an additional set of agencies in here I would probably have to make channel assignments for them, structure it more, and break up the work load a little more.”

Gillespie has sent the cost estimates to Deuel County, but as of Wednesday has not had a response from them.