Call center controversy

FORT WAYNE, Ind., (WANE) -- - The city of Fort Wayne believes it's one step closer to merging 911 call centers with the county; but county officials say major details need to be ironed out before that happens.

Talk of consolidating the call centers has been ongoing for awhile now.  Both centers are located in the basement of the City-County Building, but merging them will be a lot more complicated than just breaking down the glass wall that separates them.

"I've said from the start that if this gets done, it has to be done right, we're dealing with people's lives here," says Allen County Sheriff Ken Fries.

Fries has some reservations about the consolidation, namely, the timeline for the project.
At a meeting between both sides Wednesday an agreement to move forward as early as January was put on the table.  Fries says that's too soon.

"My question is what is the big push to get this done right now? I don't want to do this and have mistakes made because people's lives will be in jeopardy."

The consolidation talks have recently gained momentum given a tighter city budget thanks to new property tax laws.   It's estimated the merger could save the county as much as $133 thousand dollars up front, with the city racking up benefits in the long run.

City Spokesperson Rachel Blakeman says,"Obviously, this is going to be something where you've got one center that's going to be handling both the city and county operations, so it's going to save money and we believe improve public safety by having one center."

But Fries thinks 911 response times are good right now, and questions whether combining centers will actually improve them.

On top of that, there are hang ups about who will be in charge of the center and whether workers will become city employees or fall under a third party board.

Fries says,"The devil's in the details. Don't talk about saving $133 thousand dollars, talk about getting a fireman, policeman or medic to my house faster, than we can talk about whether this is a good thing to do."

Allen County Commissioner Nelson Peters adds, "I think a lot of what I see makes sense, but we simply want to take  a little bit more measured approach in getting the answers and pushing this forward before we sign on the dotted line."

Peters tells Newschannel 15 he'll push to get the merger discussed at the commissioner meeting Friday morning, with the hopes of getting closer to a deal.

If the merger doesn't happen now, by state law, both sides will have to combine their call centers by 2014.