05-25-2005 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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,_ed i / °c.,. � .,;, Yet/4 ceateciela MAYOR Sill Blesener COUNCIL Jim LaValle Rick Montour Barbara Allan John Keis 515 Little Canada Road, Little Canada, MN 55117-1600 ADMINISTRATOR (651) 766 -4029 / FAX: (651) 766 -4048 Joel R. Hanson www.ci.little- canada.mn.us MEMORANDUM TO: Mayor Blesener and Members of the City Council FROM: Joel Hanson, City Administrator DATE: May 20, 2005 RE: Consolidated Dispatch for 800 Mhz As you know, Ramsey County is moving ahead with plans for a consolidated dispatch center serving the entire County. This would involve the mergers of the existing dispatch operations currently conducted by St. Paul, Ramsey County, Maplewood, and White Bear Lake (the status of merging Maplewood and White Bear Lake is still unknown). The County and St. Paul have been negotiating this merger for quite a while. Some advantages to St. Paul would be the avoidance of about $5 million in capital costs if they were to set -up their own dispatch center. Also, with the County taking over all of the operating costs for the center over the next eight years, St. Paul will save about $2 million per year. That is where one of the major concerns with this consolidation arises. Ramsey County is proposing to take over responsibility for on -going operating costs for this center thereby eliminating them from individual jurisdictions. In our case, this means we would see a drop in our contract with Ramsey County for dispatch services of about $38,000. However, the County's levy will rise accordingly. The County is proposing to spread these costs over the county tax base. The problem with this approach is that the tax base splits about 50/50 between St. Paul and the suburbs but the call load is weighted 70/30 toward St. Paul. As a result, a substantial subsidy is granted to St. Paul by this funding and our taxpayers pick up the increased costs as part of their County tax payment. (See spreadsheet prepared by Falcon Heights that provides more documentation of this situation. You will note they show higher costs for dispatch than are currently included in our Sheriffs contract.) There is also a concern that St. Paul is currently understaffed and additional costs may be incurred over current estimates to resolve this issue. Differing perspectives will tell you that dispatch is an important function and therefore a righttill County expenditure. One may also say that the equity in levying for County services is hard to attain with a core city having dramatically different needs than those which exist in