BY MEGHAN V. MALLOY

Staff Writer

Four months after more than half of Kennebec County's municipalities bolted an Augusta-based 911 answering service for one based in Skowhegan, officials who made the change are reporting savings and better service.

Twenty Kennebec County municipalities have left the Central Maine Regional Communications Center. Most town and city leaders cited cost, not quality of service, as the reason.

But some communities are now saying service was a factor in their decisions to leave.

"It was both," Readfield Town Manager Stefan Pakulski said. "We were told consolidation was going to be an improvement and help us save money, and we have found the opposite to be the case. When there was an opportunity to say no, (town leaders) were only too pleased to take advantage of it."

Readfield changed 911 answering services July 1. Since then, Pakulski said, there "have been no complaints, and I used to get them frequently."

Complaints typically came from emergency medical service crews and volunteer firefighters unhappy about how calls were handled by the Central Maine Regional Communications Center.

"There were many times when our departments should have been dispatched and weren't, or information was not passed quickly," Pakulski said.

In neighboring Winthrop, Police Chief Joseph Young also has noticed a difference.

"We don't have the same problems we were having with RCC," he said. "We were given wrong address, wrong complainant's names, it was just a myriad of issues."

Still, Young said, the primary reason for changing centers was price. "We get better value for our dollar through Somerset than through the central Maine center," he said.

Mike Smith, director of Somerset County Communications Center, said the transition for municipalities in both counties and his dispatchers was "seamless."

Dispatchers use tools such as a spreadsheet identifying the appropriate fire or rescue agency for each community in Kennebec County to ensure 911 calls are routed to the correct agency. Additionally, two more dispatchers were hired -- one started in October, the second will start this month, Smith said. By the end of November, four dispatchers will staff the Somerset center 24 hours a day.

Dispatchers handle calls for all of Somerset County -- 33 municipalities and 83 unorganized territories -- and, now, 20 municipalities in Kennebec County.

Despite taking on more than half of Kennebec County, emergency communications in Somerset County remains business as usual.

"This is a county where we aren't afraid to talk," Madison Police Chief Barry Moores said. "If I had a problem with communications, I would call Mike (Smith) and we'd talk it out. But I haven't a had a problem with (the Kennebec communities switching) and haven't heard a complaint from anyone else in the department."

Meghan V. Malloy -- 623-3811, ext. 431

mmalloy@centralmaine.com