Above: I had hoped that MTC’s Town Survey could shed light on public opinion about local vs regionalized dispatch. Unfortunately, not many respondents completed that section of the survey. (image cropped from survey results)
One of the more controversial items at last year’s Town Meeting is back on the Warrant again this year in a different form.
Citizen’s Petitions are asking voters to increase the Town’s recommended budget to bolster the public safety dispatcher staff.
This isn’t the first time that I’ve alerted readers about the issue being up for a vote. But past coverage has been buried within stories with unrelated headlines. So, I’m dedicating this post to the issues and providing an update.
Dispatch Staffing Budget – Short-Term vs Long-Term Solution
Doubling dispatch staff to have two dispatchers on duty 24 hours per day was part of Police Chief Ryan Newell’s budget request for FY25 (July ’24-June ’25). It was a request that had also been supported by former Fire Chief Steven Achilles.
Neither the Select Board or Advisory Committee supported the request at this time. Instead the Select Board will continue to research the possibility of entering a new agreement to join a Regional Emergency Communications Center (RECC).
Dispatch will also be included in a broader study the Town plans to have conducted on Police staffing. (Scroll down for more on that.) The Select Board and Advisory expect to be able to bring recommendations to a Special Town Meeting in the fall. At that time, they could ask voters to increase police and/or dispatch budgets.
Former Select Board member Bonnie Phaneuf has publicly pushed the Town to act sooner. For years, she has been voicing concern about the chiefs’ descriptions of potential dangers based on an understaffed dispatch department.
Phaneuf warned that waiting for a long term solution is creating a liability for the Town. Instead, she is urging the board to hire more dispatchers.
Initially, she filed Citizen Petition Articles that reflected Chief Newell’s request. Article 6 requested additional funding in the Police Budget for four full-time dispatcher salaries, and Article 7 would increase the budget to cover their benefits.
Recently, she announced that she will modify her request on the floor to cut the ask in half. She calculated that, due to increased overtime, two full-time dispatchers’ salaries would only ad $131,880 to the budget. (You can read her handout here.) The handout didn’t appear to explain the impact on Article 7, which showed the benefits as an additional increase of $119,372 for four employees, and which I presume will be cut down to $59,686.
I had been informed that the initial Articles would have raised the tax increase from the 3.99% projected by the Town to 4.81%. So, I assume this would result in a 4.4% increase instead.
In past budgets, dispatch was included under the Police Budget. This year, with the issue still up for debate, the Town split it out into its own budget (under category 218 on page 26 of the Warrant).
At last night’s Select Board Meeting, Moderator Paul Cimino zoomed in to clarify that he believes that Articles 6 & 7 will be moot, since they will be resolved under Article 5 for the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget.
According to Cimino, under Article 5, Phaneuf will make motions to increase the relevant budgets. She’ll get to make her case then and voters will decide. Select Board members agreed that prior to that, they will layout their plan for researching the issues and bringing plans to a Fall Town Meeting. (They are targeting a weeknight during the last week of September.)
Article on RECC agreements
An additional Citizen’s Petition on the Warrant, brought by Bonnie Phaneuf in partnership with John Butler focuses on the board’s intent to enter a RECC. In the non-binding Article, Town Meeting voters are asked to advise the Select Board not to enter a new agreement without first presenting its terms to Town Meeting.
Bringing the terms to a Town Meeting is something the board has said they planned to do. On Tuesday night, the board formally voted to bring any planned agreement to Town Meeting to get feedback before signing one. (That comes with the caveat that ultimately the decision will be there’s, even if it doesn’t align with voters’ feedback.)
Butler said that he will explain his Article (#8), allow the Select Board to make that statement, then ask for the Article to be indefinitely postponed.
Public Opinion on Dispatch and RECCs
In preparation for Town Meeting, the Municipal Technology Committee issued a Town Survey which included information and questions on the topic.
The hope had been to get feedback from a wider swath of residents than attend Annual Town Meeting. Unfortunately, the participants weighed in on that section of the survey than were about the same number as those who reliably attend Town Meeting, and lower than attendance when hot issues drive higher attendance. So, I’m not sure how much insight it provides officials.
Over 58% of 149 participants said that a solution should be found for dispatch to better cover multiple emergencies. Less than 22% said it that wasn’t needed.
As for beefing up staffing vs outsourcing to a RECC, only 97 respondents shared an opinion. (And 6 of them said no action was needed.)
52 respondents (somewhat or strongly) supported increasing internal staff vs 39 who (somewhat or strongly) supported entering a RECC.
[Note: The full survey results were posted this week. You can read the responses to all of the questions here.]
Other Police Staffing and Budget Issues
Dispatchers were only a part of Chief Newell’s staffing increase requests. His budget also initially included a request to hire an additional police officer and Lieutenant.
He explained that due state police reform laws and regulations and open meeting laws related to handling of footage from new body cams, have all significantly added to the Lieutenant’s work load, and his as he tries to support him. (You can read about that under Police Budget in my January story here.)
Newell is also seeking to create a traffic unit that is separate from patrol cars. He noted that speeding concerns is one of the biggest concerns they hear from the community.
Advisory didn’t support the request. Members felt that they needed more information. They instead recommended having a study conducted to look at the current staffing levels/model and determine what it should be.
In their report to Town Meeting, Advisory pointed to a similar, prior study done in 2000 that informed some of the Town’s past staffing decisions. The Select Board ultimately agreed with Advisory on the Police Budget and with using $25K of the $30K in Article 16 for hiring consultants for the study.
Last night, Select Board Member Sam Stivers referred to the study in context of the dispatcher issues. He said he was looking forward to hearing from an independent expert.
Member Marguerite Landry asked what would happen if Article 16 doesn’t pass. Member Kathy Cook reminded that they still have some of the federal ARPA money available to assign.
