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BY BETTY ADAMS
Staff Writer 08/29/2008

Staff Writer

More than 100 municipalities in the state might pay a lot more next year to have E-911 calls answered and then to have police, fire or rescue personnel respond. Most of the increase is to cover pay raises for state workers.

The state Department of Public Safety, which answers emergency calls for most communities in Kennebec, York and Aroostook counties, is proposing a 64 percent rate increase for the service. A similar increase is proposed for responding to emergencies.

Litchfield is one Kennebec County town facing the increase next year.

It is paying $31,000 this year for emergency answering and dispatching services from the Central Maine Regional Communications Center in Augusta. If the proposal is approved by the Maine Public Utilities Commission, the town would pay an estimated $50,000 for the year beginning July 2009, Town Manager Michael Byron said.

"If you take $50,000 and spread it over all hours per day, it comes down to almost $6 per hour for service," Byron said.

Maine Municipal Association's Jeffrey Austin said the group filed to be an official participant in the case to represent its member municipalities in the proceedings.

"We filed to be an intervenor to allow us to ask follow-up questions," Austin said.

Austin said a review of state-run Public Safety Answering Points indicates they have more output per dispatcher, but much higher costs per worker.

"Efficiency is gained, probably, but there looks to be a significant cost hit from it," Austin said. "At best, there are no cost savings to consolidation."

The proposed rate increase was presented to the Maine Public Utilities Commission Aug. 15. The panel has set a hearing in November, according to Fred Bever, a spokesman for the commission.

The proposal calls for the charge for Public Safety Answering Point Services to increase from $2.50 per capita to $4.09 per capita beginning in July 2009.

"The primary expense associated with providing PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) and dispatch services is personnel," according to testimony from Janet Richards, assistant to the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety. "Personnel expenses comprise approximately 90 percent of the department's budgeted expenditures for the test year (state fiscal year 2008)."

The Emergency Communications Bureau -- a unit of the Department of Public Safety that answers emergency calls -- has one director, six supervisors, 63 communications specialists and five technicians.

In all, Richards said, the Department of Public Safety determined it will need $16.2 million to provide emergency answering and dispatch services to communities for the two-year period that begins July 1, 2009.

The cost to run the regionalized dispatch centers for the "test year" -- 2008, which ended June 30 -- was $5.4 million.

Of the $16.2 million requested for the next two years, $3.1 million would fund retroactive pay increases for emergency communications specialists and retention stipends resulting from a reclassification request approved in March.

"The agreement authorizes the specialists and supervisors a one pay-range increase, effective retroactively to October 2007, and a 15-percent retention stipend effective retroactively to Jan. 1, 2008," Richards said.

She called it "an extraordinary cost" because the staff had originally requested the reclassification in 2002, which was denied.

The appeal of the denial remained unanswered until November 2007, when a second reclassification request was made.

Richards noted that when the original reclassification request was made, the Bureau of Consolidated Emergency Communications did not exist, and "the positions were funded by a combination of General Fund, Highway Fund and other Special Revenue funds."

An investigation into the rates charged to towns was ordered by the Legislature in a law that went into effect on April 15.

Rep. Kenneth Fletcher, R-Winslow, said the Legislature directed consolidation to be more cost effective.

"In general (consolidation) worked pretty good, with the exception of the Central Maine Regional Communications Center, where costs went up significantly."

Waterville and Winslow turned to Somerset County for dispatch services. "It was half the price of what regional communications center was charging," Fletcher said.

The Public Utilities Commission investigation into the rates charged to municipalities was initiated by statute.

"The Legislature, at the end of the year, decided to have the (Public Utilities Commission) go in and do a rate case to try to find what is a competitive rate and find out why the Central Maine Regional Communications Center is so expensive," Fletcher said.

Documents in the case are available online (www.maine.gov/mpuc/) in the Virtual Case File of the Public Utilities Commission, docket No. 2008-225.

Betty Adams -- 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com

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