Vermont task force releases draft plan to strengthen statewide 911, dispatch and radio systems

The Public Safety Communications Task Force presented a draft system planning report on March 18 that identifies gaps across Vermont’s 911 call‑taking, dispatch and radio communications systems and lays out options for standards, governance, financing and phased regionalization.

The report, released for public review this month, found Vermont currently operates a fragmented network of 37 dispatch centers and six Public Safety Answering Points, two of which are run by the Vermont State Police in Westminster and Williston. The draft recommends baseline performance metrics, common operational and technical standards, CAD‑to‑CAD interoperability, and options to consolidate or otherwise regionalize dispatch centers while aligning PSAPs under a non‑law‑enforcement authority.

The report matters because the task force was created by Act 78 in 2023 to develop a reliable, secure and interoperable statewide public safety communications system that is equitably financed and universally accessible. A more cohesive system, the consultants’ draft says, would reduce opportunities for information to fall through transactional gaps when multiple dispatch centers need to coordinate emergency response for incidents inside a single jurisdiction.

Task force co‑chair Barbara Neal, executive director of…