Umatilla County dispatch price hikes cause ‘sticker shock’
By Terry Murry on Thursday, May 23rd, 2024 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
UMATILLA COUNTY – The Umatilla County Sheriff’s Office informed participating police and fire agencies that the cost of emergency dispatch is going up by a large amount. The increases were not made public until May 7, after many cities had completed their proposed budgets for the new fiscal year that begins July 1.
“The cities kind of got sticker shock when we sent out the funding formulas for dispatch,” Sheriff Terry Rowan said. “But, at the same time, the county for these past two years has kind of carried those increases.”
There have been annual cost increases for the participants every year. The biggest expense Rowan said is in pay raises that were given to attract more applicants for jobs in dispatch, which was short staffed. He added that the cost of equipment and other expenses also continues to rise.
Hermiston Police Chief Jason Edmiston said his department has seen the cost of dispatch increase by 83 percent over the last three budget cycles. He also complained about the late notice and a general lack of communication between the sheriff’s office and the police and fire agencies that use dispatch services.
“What we are talking about regarding dispatch is that it is a communications center,” he wrote. “The most frustrating part of our consolidated ‘partnership’ has been the lack of communication to the various stakeholders on all topics, especially the funding component. When any entity or organization has problems, the most common cause or leading factor is poor communication.”
Edmiston said an 83 percent increase over three fiscal years is not sustainable.
“While wage increases as explained is the driving force behind that, I revert to the communication or lack thereof as something where we (and other cities) could somewhat prepare better if we knew what was coming,” he wrote.
Pendleton City Manager Robb Corbett also expressed concern over what he said is a 33 percent increase for Pendleton this fiscal year. He said Chief Chuck Byram is equally concerned and will work to improve the county’s communication with its participating agencies.
“We hope that through this process we can get a little bit better communication going so that this feels more like a team effort rather than a mandated effort from an organization that essentially has a monopoly over the service,” he said.
