Lapeer County 800MHz Consortium Business Plan, Amended August 27, 2009

Lapeer County 9-1-1 Service Plan, Amended 1994

How does 9-1-1 affect me? FAQ

ABC 12 News Story, March 25, 2010

ABC 12 News Story, October 20, 2009

ABC 12 News story, January 26, 2009

ABC 12 News story, January 26, 2009

System Replacement Need

The Lapeer County Central Dispatch Authority Board has been working on developing this project for the last three years. In that time, a lot of work and research was done which brought us to where we are today and the decision to join the MPSCS as our primary communications system. The MPSCS was the first state-wide communications system in the United States.
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Radio System Failures

Over the Christmas and New Year’s holiday (2008-2009) we had a major failure of the microwave system, which links our three tower sites together. The system failed twice; once on December 23, 2008 and again on December 27, 2008. Each time the failure effectively halted our ability to communicate with the public safety agencies in Lapeer County.
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How much tax should I expect to pay to support this 9-1-1 systems replacement?

The millage request is for 0.75 mills over a ten year period. If you have a home valued at $200,000 the SEV (state equalized value) is going to be approximately $100,000. That means the taxable value of your home is $100,000. 0.75 mills of $100,000 equals $75 per year in taxes or $750 over ten years.

Many people pay more money per month for cable/satellite TV or cellphones than they will pay per year to keep the 9-1-1 systems running. This millage and the completed project will continue to bring peace of mind, safety & security to the citizens and public safety responders of Lapeer County.

Committee for Lapeer County 9-1-1

It is important to understand that 9-1-1 phone service is only one of the many service components provided with such a system. In Lapeer County, all public safety response is coordinated through a single point of contact. Any need for police, fire, or EMS response is initiated and managed through Central Dispatch. In addition, these agencies can share in the state-of-the-art technology available at a much lesser cost.

Did you know that 37 separate public safety and health emergency responding agencies rely on Lapeer County Central Dispatch?

9 Police agencies
15 Fire departments
7 EMS agencies
6 Medical First Responder Teams

Nearly 800 Public Safety Personnel all communicate and manage emergencies with tremendous cost saving by having 1 consolidated dispatch agency.

Last year Central Dispatch processed over 112,000 calls for assistance from all 18 townships, villages, and cities throughout the county. That amount is an increase of over 12% from the previous year.
By having a comprehensive, consolidated dispatch system, our citizens and public safety responders have the benefits of:

• A single point of contact for all public safety response
• More efficient response time to emergencies
• Reduced confusion and proper agency response
• Enhanced safety for responding emergency personnel
• Elimination of duplication of services
• Responsible, efficient, and economical use of dispatch services
• Interagency cooperation and oversight
• Enhanced 9-1-1
• Enhanced Wireless 9-1-1
• Integrated Public Safety Radio Communications
• Computer aided dispatch
• Emergency medical dispatch
• Emergency operations center
• Central dispatch authority

The Need for a New Radio System

Through the direction of the Lapeer County Central Dispatch, Police, Fire and the Public Owned EMS ambulance company (LCEMS) have had the foresight to purchase new equipment. They have purchased over 350 Motorola XTS 5000 (portable) and XTL 5000 (mobile) radios. These are dual purpose radios, (they have both analog and digital capability) which have been purchased with Homeland Security grants in the past several years. These radios have replaced worn out mobile and portable analog radios. We have tried to get stimulus money from the Federal Government and have been declined for the current year. We are going to apply for 2010 stimulus money again in January. We have had correspondence with Federal Congressional people, Candice Miller, Debbie Stabenow, Carl Levin as well as State Congressional representatives, Kevin Daley and Jud Gilbert. They understand our need and we are working with them to get grants. When Lapeer County Central Dispatch started in 1996, we did not know that analog systems would become outdated, and recently we were advised that Motorola would no longer support an analog system. Much like the TV you bought in years past, how did we know that they no longer would be supported.

The Lapeer County EMS ambulance service is owned by several townships in Lapeer County. It is a public owned service. All other ambulances that are dispatched by Lapeer Central Dispatch have purchased their own radios. No Lapeer County Central Dispatch money has been paid out to a private owned company.

It will take 18 + months to change over to a new system and if the current system fails we have no alternative, we can only hope to find parts. Many 9-1-1 centers in the state are currently making the change over to the digital radio system, MPSCS (Michigan Public Safety Communications System)

As to the election costs, we have been advised that we have to pay for the ballots which are specially printed and we do have to pay for the workers, they are not all volunteers. Due to recent election law changes the price of an election has increased. County Clerk,Marlene Bruns, can provide further information on the cost of elections or your local clerk’s office.

If this election passes, Lapeer County Central Dispatch will continue to dispatch for all agencies as we do now. We have one dispatch center in Lapeer County. Last year we handled 30,285 emergency calls for help and 82,075 non-emergency calls for assistance for a total of 112,360 calls for service. We are the single point of contact for any type of emergency that may occur. We dispatch all Police, Fire and EMS ambulances in Lapeer County. You do not have to pay for separate dispatchers for every city, village, township, county or state agency. We are fortunate to have one central dispatch center, Genesee County currently has 3, Oakland County and Macomb County have multiple 9-1-1 centers.

Our current system is 13 years old and is in need of replacement. In the past few years we have had some failures and have found equipment to replace broken parts. These parts are no longer made for an analog system. We have had an independent consultant assist in looking at what we should do. The consultant gave us four options. They suggested the most cost effective and best system to get would be the MPSCS (Michigan Public Safety Communications System). They will pay for any upgrades and have a 15 year upgrade plan in place for the system. Many of the 9-1-1 centers in the State of Michigan have or are in the process of going to this system. Genesee, St. Clair, Macomb and Saginaw Counties have just switched over to the MPSCS, Tuscola, Huron and Bay Counties are in the planning stage as we are to switch over soon. We have started the process two years ago of planning and researching what would be the best and most efficient system for Lapeer County. It has been a long process to make sure we will meet the needs of the citizens, communities and public safety responders when we put in a new system.

Dispatchers

Every dispatcher at Lapeer County Central Dispatch goes through a very thorough training cycle before they are left to handle calls on their own. This process takes approximately 6 months to complete. A new dispatcher is placed with an experienced dispatcher who is a Communications Training Officer (CTO). They work together for the duration of the training cycle. The new dispatcher learns the specific practices and methods for handling emergency and non-emergency calls in addition to learning how to dispatch those calls to responding agencies from police to fire and EMS.

In addition to the in-house training a new dispatcher receives, they also attend professional courses in each area of service and receive accreditation or certification in those areas. The following are just some of the courses dispatchers attend.

Emergency Medical Dispatch, NAED
Telecommunicator's training, APCO
Professional Dispatcher, MACNLOW
Law Enforcement Information Network (LEIN), Michigan State Police
Public Safety Communications, APCO
Domestic Violence Intervention, Power Phone
Suicide Intervention, Power Phone
Stress Identification & Management, Power Phone
Hazardous Materials Preparedness , Power Phone
CPR for the Healthcare Provider, AHA & LCEMS

With Emergency Medical Dispatch training, every dispatcher is trained to obtain specific and important information about a patient in need of medical attention. That information is used to relay to the responding ambulance and medical first responder teams in Lapeer County. This same training also offers pre-arrival instructions. Pre-arrival instructions are used to assist in caring for the patient prior to the arrival of responding medical help.

Training doesn't stop for dispatcher's after their CTO period is over. Every dispatcher attends continued training every year and in some cases, must be re-certified on a regular basis to maintain their current certifications.