SOUTH HADLEY — When residents call 911, the person who answers may soon not be in South Hadley.
The town is looking to join Westfield’s dispatch center in the next fiscal year. The Select Board has already approved the move, but the two fire districts now need to consider whether they will join the agreement and pay for a service.
Compared to Westcomm or Wilbraham Regional Dispatch Center, Westfield’s dispatch fits both South Hadley’s emergency service and financial needs, Town Administrator Lisa Wong and Police Chief Jennifer Gundersen told the Fire District 1 Prudential Committee on Tuesday night.
“The inability for our [call center] to be able to dispatch both police and fire comes down to not enough bodies, when a dual incident comes in, or we’re dealing with three complex incidents in town, which really can happen quite frequently,” Gundersen said.
South Hadley currently has five full-time dispatchers and two part-time dispatchers who would lose their positions if the town moves to regionalize the service. This change will take place regardless of the Proposition 2 1/2 override vote in the April election.
If the town signs an agreement with the city’s dispatch within the next 60 days, South Hadley will join Westfield’s application for a five-year state 911 grant and receive full funding for the three years. Wong estimates the town government will save an initial $300,000 annually.
In the fourth year, South Hadley and the fire districts would pay 50% of the $200,000 contract, then 75% in the fifth year. The town would save $100,000 annually, compared to what it pays now, even once the payments kick in, according to Wong. The price split between the districts and the town has yet to be decided.
Right now, South Hadley does not always have two dispatchers on a shift, so Fire District 1 and the Police Department will bring in an officer or firefighter to cover one of the phones. Fire District 2 contracts a dispatch position out to Mount Holyoke College.
A 2024 police staffing study conducted by Municipal Resources Inc. from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, noted South Hadley had a low number of dispatchers compared to similar-size towns, and patrol officers often worked one shift a month to fill in the gaps.
“There’s a benefit to all of us in terms of improved service as well, in both professional staffing and oversight, as well as the redundancy,” Wong said.
Discussions of a regional dispatch center come as the town of South Hadley faces a $3.5 million deficit that is predicted to grow by $2 million to $3 million each year.
“I’ll say that the gap for the regional dispatch is peanuts compared to the gap in health insurance and other things that we’re still dealing with in those future years,” Wong said.
Gundersen said she first mentioned regionalization to the dispatchers in October 2024 because town dispatch centers are “not sustainable” with the state’s funding.
Westfield currently serves both itself and Southwick. The center has three or four people on a shift at a time, which would go to to four or five dispatchers if South Hadley joined. Gundersen said she hopes the current staff at the South Hadley Police Station would consider applying to the open position.
“When I was looking at the center, I was looking for something that was more like what we have, so more community-based than regional-based,” Gundersen said.
WestComm in Chicopee costs 35% more to contract with because it’s a regional entity that pays for all of its administration, Gundersen said. Westfield is city-owned and therefore maintains a community feel, but also has more support than Wilbraham’s center.
However, acting District 1 Fire Chief Jason Houle noted that regional dispatch centers lose a familiarity with their communities that residents value. Dispatchers know the street names, houses with frequent ambulance visits and residents subject to crisis calls.
“We’re not going to have that, having them out in Westfield, because chances are, you could have somebody that’s never even been in South Hadley or has only driven through here,” Houle said. “Whereas now, the officers on the dispatch, they know the locations. They know the community.”
Bob Authier, resident and retired District 1 fire chief, said South Hadley is infamous for having similar sounding roads. He also notes that South Hadley proposed regionalizing dispatch around 2012, but the fire districts pulled out after learning they’d be supplementing additional positions to man the station.
“The law said the town had to answer the calls regardless back then,” Prudential Committee Chair Kurt Schenker said. “I see the future, where things are going. It is a huge savings.”
District 1 and District 2 Prudential Committees will further discuss the the contract at their April 7 meetings.