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Quincy 911 budget includes staffing lines, radio upgrades and CAD replacement planning
Summary
The city’s 911 director told the council the joint Quincy-Adams County 911 center is operating at about 80% staffing, seeks to restore authorized headcount, and budgets funds for radio upgrades and a new computer-aided dispatch system.
The director of the City of Quincy–Adams County 9-1-1 center presented the department’s budget and ongoing technology projects during the council’s budget workshop.
Jessica, who identified herself as the 9-1-1 director to the meeting, said the center is an intergovernmental agency overseen by the City of Quincy and Adams County Joint Emergency Telephone System Board and that funding is provided by the city, the county and Illinois surcharge revenue. The center’s Fund 202 (the 60/40 fund) reflects the City of Quincy contributing 60% and Adams County 40% of that fund’s expenses, she said. The budget approved by the ETSB in January authorizes 18 full-time positions and three part-time employees; staffing currently structures 16 dispatchers and two dispatch supervisors.
The center is operating at roughly 80% of normal staffing with three dispatcher vacancies and one dispatch-supervisor vacancy, Jessica said. The presented budget is built to the full authorized staffing level.
Jessica described capital and technology projects funded through the Illinois surcharge revenue fund (Fund 204), including completion of a radio infrastructure upgrade to P25 communications technology and the addition of a tenth radio site to improve coverage in the southwest portion of the service area. The budget also includes capital dollars for implementing a new computer-aided dispatch (CAD) software suite; staff said CAD implementation will carry into the next fiscal year as a multi-year project.
She noted two cost items that Illinois surcharge funds cannot cover under state rules governing telephone-surcharge revenues: the annual license and maintenance for the law-enforcement records-management system shared by the 9-1-1 center, Quincy Police Department and Adams County Sheriff’s Office, and personnel uniform costs. “The Emergency Telephone System Act prohibits the ETSB from using surcharge monies for those expenses,” she said.
Council members had no further questions after the presentation, and staff said the ETSB approved the budget in January.
