Communications director urges raises and outlines overtime, staffing and a radio-system capital need

The county's communications speaker (identified in the meeting transcript as a department leader) presented a multi-year pay plan for dispatch and related communications staff and asked for council support to raise dispatcher pay and reduce turnover. The speaker described long training timelines (about nine months to train a new dispatcher), minimum staffing requirements to safely answer 9-1-1 calls, and the operational risks and liability the county faces if minimum staffing is not maintained. He said his pay proposal aligns dispatcher salaries toward a target annual base in the low $50,000 range and that the request was structured to spread increases over multiple years rather than seeking a single large adjustment.

He asked the council to allow planned raises that would raise dispatcher pay and also described the department's reliance on overtime when vacancies persist; commissioners noted the county is budgeting overtime across multiple departments and discussed recent federal guidance on the tax treatment of qualifying overtime.

Capital needs: the communications speaker also flagged a radio-system replacement as a multi-million-dollar capital need (he cited a $2 million radio system replacement as an upcoming requirement) and said the county lacks a long-term capital replacement program to cover vehicles, radios and other public-safety equipment. Commissioners discussed lease options and multi-year replacement programs for vehicles and capital equipment but did not adopt any program at the meeting.

Next steps: the communications speaker said he could identify givebacks from his 2025 budget that could help partially fund the requested pay increases for 2026 and agreed to provide those numbers to county finance staff. Commissioners asked for cost numbers to be delivered quickly to inform budget adjustments.