Chatham Borough to Begin Using County's Emergency Dispatch Services

Chatham Borough will transfer over its 911 dispatch services to Morris County in an effort to save money and modernize the way it handles emergency calls.

Borough police officers said at a Borough Council meeting Monday that the one dispatcher working at any given time in the borough center can sometimes be overwhelmed if an important call comes in. At the county level, he said, there are multiple people on staff handling various calls.

He also said the technology the county uses is far superior to what the borough has.

"We're looking, if we go this way, at improving service," Police Chief Phillip Crosson said.

Once the borough switches over, it will save roughly $229,000 per year over the course of the next five years.

In total, it will cost the borough, on average, $198,000 per year over the next five years to run dispatch services through the county. Without switching over, it would have cost the borough an average of about $428,000 per year.

Police Lt. Brian Gibbons said it will soon become difficult for towns throughout the state to fund their own 911 dispatch services. That's because the state has stripped local police departments of the ability to receive grant money for such purposes in an effort to encourage them to consolidate their services with their respective counties.

He also said the borough's cellular phone mapping technology—which helps pinpoint the location from which a 911 call is being made—is somewhat antiquated. The county, he said, has mapping software that will allow it to triangulate things a bit better.

Crosson also said that he sometimes needs to put a regular police officer, instead of a dispatcher, in the dispatcher's seat if a dispatcher is off duty. Police officers, he said, generally sit in that dispatcher seat for close to 2,400 man hours per year.

A normal police officer works about 2,000 hours per year.

"That would be like adding another officer," Crosson said.

The switchover will take place in January 2011.

Representatives from other police departments came to the meeting to extol the virtues of the county's system. As of September, 14 municipalities throughout the county will use its dispatch system (Chatham Township is not one of them).

Morris Plains Police Chief Scott Thompson said some of the rank and file officers in his department were worried when the switch was made. In the end, though, he said, many have come on board with the plan.

"I literally have not heard one complaint from any officer in my department," he said.

Michael Peoples, who directs the county's 911 communications center, was also present at the meeting.