The Van Buren County 911 Board may have an ultimatum for the city of Spencer.
911 Board Chairman Brian Bricker said they can’t afford to keep dispatching calls for the city of Spencer without more money. Bricker said they’ll ask their attorney about setting a date to stop dispatching service for Spencer.
Bricker said the 911 center takes emergency calls and does dispatching for Spencer and Van Buren County. They also take all after-hours non-emergency calls for the city, like water leaks and power outages. For that service, Spencer pays the 911 board $28,500 a year, the same amount they’ve paid since 2000. Bricker said that’s not enough to cover the salary and benefits for one dispatcher.
“We’re not unwilling to do it,” Bricker said. “We just can’t afford to keep doing it at that price.”
Bricker said the 911 center would still take calls, but instead of dispatching city police and fire, they’d transfer the information to those agencies.
