Excerpts from theTimesWeekly.com:
Will County is under pressure to develop a plan to merge its six 911 dispatch centers into three by next July. However, many key details—such as where the new centers will be located, how they will be funded, and what services they will provide—remain unclear.
According to Steve Rauter, executive director of WESCOM and chairman of the Will County Emergency Telephone System 9-1-1 Board's long-range planning committee, there are only two certainties: the county must submit a plan to the state by July 2016, and the plan must be fully implemented by July 2017. Failure to meet these deadlines could lead to the loss of state funding that comes from phone service carrier fees, Rauter warned.
"We're taking this law seriously," he said. "The Illinois State Police are responsible for enforcing it, and if we don’t comply, we won’t get the funding."
The current system includes Joliet, the largest dispatch center handling police and fire calls for city residents, and WESCOM in Plainfield, which serves 19 communities including Bolingbrook, Wilmington, and Braidwood. Other centers are located in Romeoville, Crete, Frankfort (covering Lincoln-Way areas), and Will County itself, which handles only emergency calls in unincorporated regions and does not dispatch firefighters.
While many believe Joliet and WESCOM should remain, nothing is set in stone. As serious discussions begin this month, things could change, according to Will County Undersheriff Bob Contro, who is involved in planning a new law enforcement campus.
One possible location for a new center is the sheriff’s office building on Laraway Road, which is set to break ground next year. However, timing is critical, as the design phase is expected to start before the end of the year, Contro noted.
"Right now, everything is on the table," he said.
The consolidation mandate was signed into law earlier this year with the goal of reducing the number of 911 centers across Illinois. The idea is to cut down on delays caused by transferring calls between centers during emergencies.
Rauter mentioned that the long-term vision is a statewide consolidated system. However, financial challenges loom large. Illinois cannot use federal grant money because it has already redirected 911 funds to balance the state budget. Additionally, the state must also fund new 911 systems in nine counties where such service is currently unavailable.
The exact amount of state funding available to counties like Will remains uncertain. A new oversight board, expected to be appointed by the governor soon, will determine what plans counties need to submit by 2016.
If Joliet and WESCOM are selected as two of the three centers, the remaining area would be covered by just one. Ideally, that center could be part of the new law enforcement campus, said County Board member Denise Winfrey, who is on the capital improvements committee.
Another possibility is that the county may choose to step back entirely from dispatching and hand over responsibilities to a new center elsewhere, Rauter said.
Many other factors still need to be decided, including which communities will be served, whether Joliet and WESCOM will take on more towns, how much equipment will be needed, what upgrades are required at existing centers, and how costs will be distributed among communities.
Typically, costs are based on the volume of calls each town generates, with smaller towns paying less. But Rauter raised a question: Should communities that are being added to a new center pay more than those that helped fund a previous expansion just three years ago?
Previous posts about issues with the 911 system in Will County are HERE and HERE.
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