Bethlehem is currently planning to merge with Northampton County's 911 system by July 2019. Though unhappy at the prospect, city officials had no choice. It was either consolidate with the county or lose state funding. The state has provided $8.1 million to facilitate this coordination. This money is being used to purchase new communication centers in Bethlehem, Allentown and in both counties. They will be connected to each other, so that if one goes down, the other can act as a back-up.
Northampton County's 911 dispatchers fielded 97,000 emergency calls last year, 67% of which were from cell phones. There were even 161 emergency text messages. There were also 296,000 non-emergency calls. Bethlehem fielded about 40,000 emergency and 50,000 nonemergency calls, and dispatchers were able to use remote cameras to assist officers responding to crime or other emergencies in real time.
Northampton County's 911 facility, located in Upper Nazareth, will dispatch the emergency calls. Bethlehem is creating its own emergency management center to monitor cameras, handle non-emergency calls and coordinate with city departments.
In order to handle the expected increase in call volume, Northampton County Council has been asked to add 26 new 911 positions. These consist of six supervisors and 20 dispatchers. Supervisors will be paid between $50,130 and71,325, while dispatchers will earn from $36,355 to 51,726.
13 comments:
From my limited understanding, these would be union positions and under the current contract pay is $17.48 per hour per what you posted/what is proposed. However, I am interested to see how that will go, seeing as how Bethlehem City is currently hiring at $19.29 per hour: https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=02cb47793e1cfbde&from=myjobs&tk=1buv4c2hc1ac80o6
The Northampton County 911 Center needs some massive scrutiny prior to anything being done merger-wise. I was hoping you would follow up a bit after your earlier blog posts this year, Bernie, because it sounded like the leadership up there was/is a total mess. As county taxpayers and citizens, we could all need 911 at any time unfortunately and we deserve the best...
You are absolutely right. There is someone who can fill me in, but I've had no chance to talk to him. I will do so now.
More problems and more expenses for the new Admisntration and the new county council. Will they be able to handle it?
This whole debacle, [and I'm stating it very mildly], was the product of our useless state legislators, [who can't even approve a budget], who have no emergency management experience or insight. Yes the current county system, especially in Northampton County, can use some tweeking and better management, but essentially the City dispatch units are of high caliber. Just like the PA motor fund, which was intended for traffic infrastructure improvements, was raided to pay for these communities that refuse to have local police coverage. These gutless asses use this to fund a depleted PSP without changing the law and charging these mega-communities [Lower Macungie Township & others] a fee to fund these operations. Pennsylvania got it all wrong, and it starts with our elected representatives. They also deserve the unemployment line!
So, there is the opportunity to reward 26 democratic supporters, We can assume this is just the start of the expansion of the county government.
Someone needs to explain why they feel they need 26 new positions to take over Bethlehem when Bethlehem has 16 dispatchers and 4 supervisors to handle everything they do including monitoring cameras and assisting Police with traffic stops.
8:11, I am sure that question will be asked. In Feb, Bethlehem had 22 FT and four PT 911 operators. At that time,it was projected that the county would need to hire 10-18 new dispatchers.
"So, there is the opportunity to reward 26 democratic supporters, We can assume this is just the start of the expansion of the county government."
This is a GOP proposal. It has been made by Brown. McClure is not even in office.
Wonder if bethlehem dispatchers will become as rude and arrogant as nc911.
Can we put this to a referendum?
No.
Honor and Intrgaty are the only thing that matters,
You are absolutely correct! There is no way the administration there now will be able to handle this merger. They are incompetent, to say the least, with the amount of employees they have now. Adding more employees to "supervise" and a higher volume if calls will be disastrous. Good luck to the residents of Northampton County.
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