The Dispatch pay is $13.00 - $17.00 and hour.  Average pay is $15.00 per hour.  If you looked in the paper when they had the salaries for the Firemen and Policemen, they get paid a HELL of a lot more.  Several of them made over $70,000.00 when you add in overtime.

The city taxpayers paid for 60+ firemen a few years ago, now the city taxpayers pay for just over 50 firemen.  Did your tax bill go down? no it didn’t and you are paying the same for less. 

The taxpayers paid for the overtime that the police and fire worked because of the council’s mismanagement, if overtime is eliminated or reduced do you think your tax bill will go down? No, it will stay the same and you will have less fire and police protection. 

Maybe the council will give the taxpayers a rebate check at the end of the year.   

 

Mrs."K",I like the line of questioning but some of your info seems to be a little off.I'm not sure who is providing your answers, but you can never be to careful.

 In 2003 the 2 highest total salaries were in Streets/Parks at Aprox $62,000. The top FF salaries were under $58,600. In 2004 the top overall highest salary was from LPD at just over $68,000, one FF at just over $67,000 while no other FF made more than $66,500. This includes salary, OT, and all other items of compensation as outlined by collective bargaining agreements. Keep in mind this does not include elected officials or Dept Heads. so no, this is not "well over $70,000". These employees are able to deliver multiple tasks to the taxpayers, more than "just answering the phone".

A look at the Nia Co. budget shows the line item of salary for dispatchers. Decide for yourself if they are indeed compensated well.

A call volume study at LPD/LFD showed LFD could expect to field aprox 150,000 call/radio transmissions a year.Add LPD to the mix the number jumps to over 545,000 call/radio transmissions a year. How many County dispatchers would need to be hired to cover this?

FF's sent City Hall a list of 12-15 questions concerning dispatch changes. We still have not gotten any answers.

Nia. Co receives 2 line items of revenue for E911. They total aprox 3.2 million, yet it takes about 1.8 million to run County dispatch. What happens to the rest? Why cant Nia Co reimburse Lockport for a fair share of the call volume that City dispatch handles?

OR

why not lower the amount collected monthly from every taxpayer in Nia Co on their home and cell phone bills. Only collect what is needed to run dispatch and we all pay a little less in monthly charges?

I sent a letter out concerning dispatch awhile ago, I'll post it when I can find it.

Hey Mr. Pratt;

I am positive I read an article in the US&J Last year (2004) for the salaries of our local law enforcement and firemen.  The top salary makers were significantly higher than what you are stating. This by the way included overtime of which is killing your department.  Why can't you have civilians answer your phone calls and free up the firemen whom are behind the communication center? You stated that a dispatcher would make $31,500 but the top pay would be around $ 40,000 and this is much lower than the top pay for a fireman. Most retirements are based on top salaries, and not on starting pay.  I feel the same for the police department.  They need to get the extra bodies on the streets instead of behind the communication center.

Mrs. K are you looking for a disbatch job?

Kevin,

Are those call numbers you quoted really accurate?  You are saying the fire department alone gets over 400 calls a day on average?  And that the police get over 1,100 calls a day themselves, for a combined call number of over 1,500 per day?

Thats more than one call every minute, it does seem hard to believe.

This call volume study included emergency calls, telephone calls from various phone lines and radio transmissions. It was taken over a 3 or 4 month period and averaged out for a yearly estimate.My Union had nothing to do with this study, we only received a copy of it.Your elected officials are well aware of this study.

Mrs K, what you say may make sense to you and most people but not to the city leaders. First it would require hiring in the fire department, which they have shown a total unwillingness to do. Second they would want to know where the money to hire these people would come from, because they refuse to see a reduction in overtime expense as a savings that can offset the costs of hiring. Third, their goal with moving dispatch to the county is to lessen the number of firefighters not increase the number available on the floor. One would have to conclude that civilian dispatchers would be viewed the same, but since they would require hiring it will never be acceptable to the City Council. They would prefer to send the dispatch to the county, eliminate 4 firefighter positions and close thier eyes to any service disruptions that may result as well as any future cost increases from the county.

This will put more people on the rigs, hopefully eliminating some overtime.
I know the fireman will go nuts over this, spout off all kinds of facts (though both sides can spout facts, it's how you look at them), and say it will never work.
 

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Well there you are wrong Mr. Anonymous. The Firefighters have never come out against county dispatch or said it wouldn't work. We have brought up a number of points for consideration and a number of questions which have never been addressed. Members of the Council have also stated that by moving dispatch to the county we would be able to operate with 4 less men, so the number on rigs wouldn't change, nor would the overtime situation. There may be a cost savings of 4 positions but one of our questions was what guarantee does the city have that there will not be any increases in costs to the city in the future.

Also we provide facts, find me an instance when the other side has ever produced facts or figures to justify thier plans. I would be very interested to see the city's 'facts' for how this central dispatch would work. I also would like to see thier numbers justifying not hiring to eliminate overtime. The council never disputes our facts, they just ignore them.

your?

"My bad ~"  No, not really, just Caps.