In January 2013, the Sheboygan County Board of Supervisors and the Sheboygan City Council approved an Inter-Governmental Agreement to merge emergency dispatch into the Sheboygan County Combined Dispatch Center. This project was a great example of cooperation between Sheboygan County and the City of Sheboygan for the benefit of their residents. The agreement approval was preceded by several years of study by the City-County Shared Services Committee. This included visits to several Wisconsin communities that had merged dispatch operations to learn the best practices and avoid potential problems. Their recommendation to pursue a combined dispatch center operated by Sheboygan County Sheriff’s Department led to further discussions further discussions by the Sheboygan County Board and the Sheboygan City Council.
During this time, the Sheboygan County Sheriff’s Department and the Sheboygan Police Department made an important decision to both purchase and use the same computer-aided dispatch and record management software (CAD-RMS) from Spillman Technologies. This also allowed both departments to share all the records that were transferred from the two different software programs that were previously used. The Spillman CAD-RMS software is in use by other law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin and allows the sharing of records and data with these other agencies.
The 2013 agreement began a four-year process that included an addition to the Sheriff’s Office to house the new dispatch facility and equipment, retrofitting the dispatch center at the Sheboygan Police Department, merging and training existing staff, hiring dispatch supervisors, hiring a manager, upgrading our existing 911 service to include texts to 911, and replacing our existing countywide analog radio system with new digital radio equipment.
The next phase of the merger included the sharing of network domains, shared hiring and training of dispatchers, personnel merger and wage structure approval, identifying dispatch supervisors, merging dispatch protocols and training programs, cross-training all dispatchers for combined center, and City dispatchers became County employees.
During construction at the Sheriff’s Department, all dispatch operations moved to Sheboygan Police Department for most of 2016. On November 29, 2016, the new combined dispatch center opened its doors. The Sheboygan County Combined Dispatch has a new layer of supervision and a manager that had not existed when each of the departments operated their separate dispatch operations. This new dispatch system eliminated the handoff of 911 calls from cell phones. Previously when a 911 call was placed from a cellphone for services at an address in the City of Sheboygan, it was received at the County dispatch, after the caller identifying the issue with the dispatcher, they were told to hold while their call was transferred to the City dispatch desk, where they then had to repeat the information about their emergency call. This transfer took additional time when the caller was frantic to report the incident. As cell phones became more prevalent over the years, this became an important barrier to overcome.
After all new operations and equipment were operating smoothly, a new Emergency Medical Dispatch program was implemented. This program allows trained dispatch staff to give lifesaving directions over the phone to the caller until the emergency staff on the ambulance arrives on site.
This project is a success because of the dedicated individuals working at the Sheboygan County Sheriff’s Department and the Sheboygan Police Department. They were led by the Communications Manager, Lt. Kristy De Blaey and the Project Manager, William Bruckbauer. A detailed Sheboygan County Combined Dispatch Final Report was recently released and is available at Bit.ly/2CQOCCd