Council chooses Highest Bidder for Dispatch

Last Tuesday night Council disappointed all of us by voting unanimously to dismantle the Gray Fire Rescue Dispatch center. Besides the inexplicable act of killing off an efficient time proven system that has long-standing confidence of the fire/rescue service and the general public, the Council made incomprehensible blunders in its analysis of the submitted bids, resulting in the dispatch contract being awarded to the highest bidder-Cumberland County.

Public Safety Committee had devised a creative solution to the dispatch " problem" that would have resulted in a true win-win situation for Gray citizens and a major benefit for our mutual aid towns. Referred to as the "Regional Dispatch Plan", the Town of Raymond proposed joining Gray in sharing expenses in forming a joint dispatch center in Gray Central Station. The Casco Fire Department had made a commitment to follow Raymond to whatever new dispatch provider it chose, so from the start, the proposed Regional Dispatch center would have three communities already signed up-at a projected cost to Gray (after start-up infrastructure and equipment improvements) of $60,000 +/-. Enter the fourth community, strong member of Gray’s mutual aid family unhappy with its current service provider, and ready to jump to Gray’s Regional Dispatch as soon as the Council showed commitment. Now the price of maintaining dispatch in Gray is cheaper per capita than County. Add the fifth community, New Gloucester when their contract expires with County next year, and Gray is making money on the Regional Dispatch center. Imagine, non-property tax revenues....what a concept.

But lets put the financial points aside and examine what types of services would the proposed Regional Dispatch provide the citizens of Gray?

Why the same services that Gray residents and visitors have enjoyed for the past 10-15 years:

1. 24/7 On-Site Emergency Walk-In services. Dispatchers in the office (all EMT-B and higher) are able to render aid immediately and summon the paramedics upstairs for all walk-in emergencies. Countless lives have been saved because of this service.

2. On-site medical billing: Insurance billings for all transport ambulance calls are processed and submitted by the Gray dispatchers. These funds pay for the 24/7 paramedic/firefighter services that insure that the first ambulance or engine rolls within two minutes of the call.

3. Fire Permits:: On demand fire permits any time .especially during the weekend.

4. Administrative services for the Fire Chief and staff. Self-explanatory, essential and especially critical when such support is removed. Who answers the phone when everybody is at a call, or at meetings, or sleeping, or on details?

5. 24/7 Information and Public Service Center: According to Department records dispatch entertained over 6,000 visits from citizens last year for everything from road directions, to first aid requests, to fire safety instructions, to showing kids the fire trucks.

6. Intimate Knowledge of Gray: Gray dispatchers know the historic landmarks, site features, and even family homesteads that can direct first responders into the scene. They know the location of the new private roads and driveways long before the data is incorporated into the E-911 or GIS systems. On a dark rainy night such knowledge saves lives.

The Public Safety Committee developed the Gray Regional Dispatch proposal in 60 days. It took the Towns of Freeport, Cumberland, Falmouth, and Yarmouth et al 2 years and a Homeland Security grant to come up with their regional dispatch system. Our PSC and department staff fleshed it out its plan in less than 60 days and no cost. Now that is performance!

The PSC wanted 60 more days to finalize more details and to entice the fourth participating Town to come out of the closet. But NO, Allison Libbey had imposed an arbitrary "Drop Dead " date of 60 days from August. Council gave itself and County 1 year to devise their own plan, but gave the PSC only 60 days???

Sounds like a rigged bid to me.

But wait, lets go back and compare apples to apples. Was the Council/County bid complete when submitted? Upon questioning by Paramedic Paula Rice at the meeting, Council had to admit that it had yet to devise a plan to accommodate all of the non-emergency functions that Gray Dispatch currently performs:

Despite working with County for a year behind the scenes, Council has not nailed down how they are going to compile and submit the medical billings from ambulance calls that Dispatch currently accomplishes. That is over $200,000 in revenues!!! Not a minor error, but a stunning and major financial oversight!

Fire Permits- If you are a homeowner, or farmer or clearing your land or a developer, this issue is no small potatoes. The State requires the Town to issue fire permits for just about any outdoor burn. Most property owners pick them up on weekends or after work. Without dispatch at the station, there is nobody to issue these permits. Certainly the Town Offices are not open. Faced with this conundrum Councilor Crane mused about devising an on-line fire permit system. As if the Visual Basic fairy is going to suddenly flit down and whack Skip on the head, bequeathing the Town with an interactive internet database system. Right. The Town can barely keep the static website current. How much is it going to cost to buy such a system and is it even available?

Administrative/ secretarial services- Council had no clue. They mused about perhaps the paramedics assuming that responsibility, but then dropped it, perhaps realizing the absurdity of their thoughts.

In the end, the Council as a group conceded that they would probably have to hire a clerical person to sit in the dispatch office during the day to perform all of these unaccounted for but vital duties.

BUT THAT CHANGES THE BOTTOM LINE OF THE COUNTY BID.

The Town will need to hire an administrative person to do all of the things County doesn’t. Assume a $26,000 - $28,000 salary plus benefits ($6,000-$7,000). Examine the final real costs:


Year 1
Start up Costs $35,000
Dispatch Fee $32,500
Administrative Assistant $33,000
Total $ 100,000

Year 2
Dispatch Fee $32,500
Administrative Assistant $34,000
Total $66,500

When just some of the hidden costs of the County bid are added up, the real cost of the County bid is actually more expensive than the three Town Regional Dispatch and much more expensive with the four Town scenario. Compared to the State Police bid as well, the reality starts to sink in that in choosing County dispatch , the Council has selected the highest not the lowest bid.

In fact Council has selected the highest bid for the lowest package of services provided.

We as citizens are losing in every aspect of this "deal"! Has not this Council billed itself as being fiscally conservative? Or is this just a case of inept fiscal analysis?

An even bigger question is: If the Council fumbled so badly in performing a cost-benefit analysis of the County dispatch proposal, then how fundamentally flawed are their assumptions about more complex issues like TABOR?