For decades, local officials have talked and talked about combining dispatching operations, the vital centers that handle calls for emergency services. Ideally, a single countywide system would be in place by now. Instead, there are 14 dispatching centers up and running in Summit County, a costly and inefficient approach.
To move forward, Russ Pry this week convened a meeting of mayors, township trustees and police and fire chiefs. Eighty-nine attended the Tuesday session, devoted to providing information on major (and expensive) changes in technology looming just over the horizon.
The county executive deserves credit for laying the groundwork for local officials to work together in a more serious and comprehensive way. The county cannot afford to offer financial incentives to overcome years of political resistance. The hope is, communities will see the savings in banding together to buy new equipment, plus the improvements new technologies will bring.
Local officials should follow quickly the path suggested by Pry. In some communities, dispatching equipment is wearing out, with replacement parts expected to be unavailable starting in 2013. New technologies promise huge advances, such as receiving text messages, locating and tracking callers using cell phones and making sure calls are automatically routed to functioning centers if one operation is taken down by a disaster. The cost? Less in each community if they act together.
The bottom line is similar to what has been found in other efforts to combine governmental services. By merging smaller operations, costs are reduced while service levels improve. Too often, local officials don’t get the message, defending local control and local identity as costs increase and service levels drop to unacceptable levels.
Local governments in Northeast Ohio form a patchwork of overlapping entities that drain resources into administrative overhead, money sorely needed for economic development, education and other priorities. By continuing to resist change, local officials may shore up their political futures. The trouble is, in the process, they invite harm to the entire region.
