Sheriff's Office to Dispatch for Daytona & Holly Hill PD's

Date Added: July 02, 2004 2:30 pm

Sheriff's Office to Dispatch for Daytona & Holly Hill PD's

Finding it a more economical and efficient way to get emergency help to the public, Daytona Beach and Holly Hill have become the latest cities to contract with the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office for dispatch services. The service contracts for both cities cleared their final hurdles Thursday morning with a unanimous vote of approval from the Volusia County Council. Daytona Beach and Holly Hill now join the cities of Lake Helen, Orange City, Oak Hill, DeLand and South Daytona that are contracting with the county to receive police dispatching services from the Sheriff’s Office. The Sheriff’s Office also dispatches for county Beach Services. 

Both Daytona Beach and Holly Hill signed standard, two-year contracts with an automatic three-year renewal clause provided both sides are satisfied with the arrangement. The contracts also include a guarantee that the Sheriff’s Office will offer jobs to all city dispatchers who satisfactorily meet the county’s hiring requirements. The contracts also include certain performance measurements. For instance, for the most serious, or priority 1 calls, the Sheriff’s Office is required to dispatch at least 90 percent of the calls within two minutes or less. 

Under the Daytona Beach agreement, the Sheriff’s Office will dispatch for the city’s police and fire departments, beginning Oct. 1. The city will pay $1.2 million in the first year of the contract. As part of Thursday’s agreement, the Sheriff’s Office will buy $25,000 worth of dispatching equipment from the city and create 25 new positions at the Sheriff’s Office’s Communications Center on Keyton Drive in Daytona Beach. The new positions will take effect on Sept. 1 to give the dispatchers a month to prepare for the transition. 

The Holly Hill contract covers police dispatching only. The first-year cost to the city will be $91,355. While the contract officially takes effect on Oct. 1, the Sheriff’s Office moved up the implementation date at the city’s request and began dispatching for the police department on June 30. 

Studies have concluded that centralizing public safety dispatch services will result in more efficient emergency response and better coordination of resources. Under the combined system, critical information is rapidly shared with all responding agencies, thereby avoiding the need to routinely transfer 911 calls from agency to agency. “The centralization of dispatch services is a safer and more efficient way of doing business,” said Sheriff Ben Johnson. “This is going to save the taxpayers millions of dollars by eliminating the service redundancy and fragmentation that occurs when each agency maintains its own dispatch center. And for city residents, the changes will be absolutely transparent.”