South Burlington bolsters dispatch center

South Burlington last week unveiled new improvements to its dispatch center that the city says will bolster its public safety apparatus as efforts to regionalize remain elusive.

The city police department last week revealed a new “state-of-the-art” dispatch center, with new technology upgrading the center from two workstations to four. It features the latest technology, including fire computer-aided dispatch software, new computer hardware, and integration with the video technology operating within police headquarters and city hall.

“This was a huge, heavy lift by fire Chief Steven Locke and police Chief Shawn Burke and all of our dispatchers and many on our fire leadership,” Jessie Baker, South Burlington’s city manager, said. “It’s a new technology, a new innovation and new efficiency for our dispatchers and we think it will really not only improve our public safety response, but also be an improvement for our dispatchers and how they do their jobs as well.”

South Burlington’s dispatch center receives more than 16,000 calls for service each year between its police, fire and EMS services, Burke said, and is a critical component of the city’s growing public safety service.

“It’s work that’s not often thought about when you think about the police or the fire department,” he said. “We don’t go anywhere unless they pick up the phone and tell us where to go, and they’re always that voice that really resonates with crime victims or those suffering with some type of medical events in their homes.”

Dispatchers are often juggling several different calls at once between fire and EMS calls and request for police services. Burke pointed to an incident in 2021 when shots were fired inside the University Mall, and dispatchers had to coordinate dozens of phone calls coming into the center.

“When you hear our dispatchers interfacing with the public on the telephone in moments of crisis, it’s really work that I can’t highlight enough,” he said. “It’s extraordinarily tough.”

The investment into the center comes as years-long efforts to regionalize a dispatch center for Chittenden County municipalities have come to a halt. While South Burlington officials have remained committed to regional efforts, it has continued with improvements to its own dispatch.

The city’s immediate goal is to hire an eighth full-time dispatcher, which would allow the police department to always keep two dispatchers on duty. A seventh dispatcher was recently hired, but the city remains short of reaching its staffing goal.

“There are times in the dispatch center when we only have one employee working — it’s an artifact of how small government and public safety once was,” Burke said, “and now that we’re growing it’s definitely a service area that city management is focused on growing.”

The city began talks to form a regional dispatch model in 2016, when a committee with representatives from eight Chittenden County communities was formed to determine the feasibility of a regional dispatch model.

Seven communities in 2018 signed on to the formation of a union municipal district — the Chittenden County Public Safety Authority — to provide regional emergency dispatch services. Initially, Essex and Shelburne declined to join the union, and Milton later partnered with St. Albans to provide those services.

But the organization was struck a blow last year when Colchester, a partner of the public safety authority since its inception, failed to authorize the annual funding for the municipal entity.

It reflected a common problem for municipalities involved in the effort: Attempting to generate the capital costs for a regional center, while maintaining their own local dispatch.

South Burlington was “highly invested” in a regional dispatch model at the time of the group’s inception. During that period, much of the city’s infrastructure in house was at the end of its serviceable life.

But the city has seen continued growth in its public safety agencies: the fire department had grown both in size and call volume — driven mainly by fire-based EMS.

The city in its fiscal year 2024 budget used American Rescue Plan Act funds, as well as surplus dollars, to invest in the new technology and the seventh dispatch employee. Grant-funded equipment originally intended for the regional project was also repurposed in house.

Burke said the city “made a very smart decision” in investing in its in-house dispatch center and “building it not only for what we need today, but maybe what we’ll need in the future.”

He suggested the potential remains for contracted services for other municipalities: “Maybe that’s more the way forward in a regional model, as opposed to an all-pair model. I don’t know.”

The city’s dispatch center “is now ready for potential regional or contract dispatch services as the future of public safety dispatching evolves in Chittenden County,” according to a city press release.