Vote No on Mason-Oceana 9-1-1 Millage. Here's Why...

[XLFD]

The headlines scream "Future looks bleak if 911 millage fails" in the Mason County Press, before it leads off with:  "Slower response times and the dispatch center’s eventual closing are on the horizon if next Tuesday’s 911 millage request fails."

The City of Ludington Daily News (COLDNews) also writes a one-sided article about how badly our 9-1-1 Center needs more money:  "This is our last resort. Further cuts will put the public and responders at risk.”

 

Police Chief Mark Barnett, Sheriff Kim Cole, County Commissioner Candidate Wally Taranko, local 9-1-1 Director Ray Hasil and others tell various anecdotes about what may happen if this effort does not pass, most are akin to apocalyptic tales of terror.

 

I have looked through the hyperbole to check the figures and I can clearly say that you should not vote for this tax levy.  Our 9-1-1 Center already has plenty of money tumbling in, in relation to similar sized counties throughout Michigan.  Two relatively poor county's taxpayers, funding their 9-1-1 Center at the highest level among ten other similar sized counties in Michigan.

Mason and Oceana County have about 55,000 people living residing therein.  Let's compare Mason/Oceana County's 9-1-1 operating expenses with counties that have similar population for their own 9-1-1 services using population data from the latest 2013 population figures.  We will consider all such counties that have populations from 50,000 to 70,000 as of 2013 which includes:

Barry County:         59,097

Cass County:           51,910

Ionia County:          64,703

Isabella County:      70,436

Marquette County:   67,700

Montcalm County:    63,105

St. Joseph County:   60,964

Shiawassee County:  68,900

Tuscola County:       54,263

Mecosta/Osceola:    66,367 and

Mason/Oceana:       54,850

 

Of the ten other counties that have such populations, only two have less population than Mason/Oceana.  One would figure that equivalent populations would have about equal volume of work, about equal expenses, about equal revenue coming in.  But this is not the case, look at the last column in this link from the State 9-1-1 Committee located at the MSP website included thereafter in a link for their 2013 report.

 

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/msp/2013_Annual_Report_429839_7.pdf

 

These are all of the counties between 50,000 and 70,000 population, and the number one on expenses is the third smallest:  Mason/Oceana County.  Not surprisingly, Cass County, the smallest in population has the smallest expenditures, but those expenditures are less than half of Mason/Oceana.  Which may surprise you since they only have about 6% less people than the two counties. 

 

Marquette County is bigger in area and 25% bigger in population, but spends nearly $700,000 (43%)less than Mason/Oceana on 9-1-1 in this 2013 report.  The 2012 report dealing with the same counties shows little difference in the figures for the most part, but check out the revenues:  it has gone from $1,518,118 in 2011 to $1,681,682 in 2012 in our counties.  That's more than a ten percent increase. 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/msp/2012_Annual_Report_to_the_Leg...

 

The figures for 2013 (which would be in the 2014 report) are not yet published, but there is obviously a problem here, even if Ray Hasil's worries about cell phone contracts and the number of vacant properties worsen and that money drops off about $50,000 each year until apparently it dries up to nothing, both of which are anecdotal and unproven. 

 

Our 9-1-1 services are already getting more money, often a lot more money, than other similar sized counties, who aren't claiming indigence and hardship and the need to raise taxes from a populace that is well bled already, but are scared about all this talk about their dispatch center closing if this millage is not passed.  If you believe these other counties are functioning well enough, which they seem to be doing, there is no reason to raise the people's tax rates so that ours can get even richer in comparison.

[Johnny]

Thor, there really is no reason to try and argue facts with Tommy.  Based on all his previous posts, it is common for him to miss facts and only post half @ss portions of a story.  He will only post information that backs his opinion instead of the entire story.  Secondly, if Tommy was let go from LFD, he would be in favor of the millage.  But since 911 has to do with firefighters, and Police Tommy would be against it anyways.  I did find it funny X when you signed your response to Hasil as, Tax Payer, Tom Rotta.  Tax Payers are people who work and not live off assistance.  Unless you are paying taxes on that lovely firewood you are selling on the busy street of dowland.  I am not to familiar with the traffic on Dowland, but I am sure it is a high traffic area for people in need of firewood.

[XLFD]

As always, I invite you and anyone else who's interested to FOIA any government agency that they believe I am receiving, or have received, any form of assistance from, and I guarantee you that you will come up empty.  Like Johnny Shay, you freely offer any slanderous hearsay and falsehoods without any sort of evidence to back it up.  That must be something you are really proud of, Johnny.

I appreciate Thor being able to access more facts than me, because ignorance is a terrible thing.  Unfortunately, there is still some points I have out there that remain unrefuted which he has found more data but has still not explained why we spend a lot for our 911 and why we need to spend more, when there seems to be more fat that needs to be trimmed.  And someone please tell me what's up with using phone plans and vacancy rates (both basically unchanged over the years) to encourage people to levy taxes on themselves? 

For the three phone lines I pay for, I pay about $7 per month in taxes for the county 911, so please allow me to use the word taxpayer as one of my epithets.  

As for my firewood business, I get enough demand to sorely test my supply chain.  Thanks to you, I  now have to deal with the extra publicity and sales, so I just may have to raise the price to dampen sales.  

[Willy]

There was a time when the police answered their own calls for emergency. Since the institution of 911 was created it has become another bloated layer of bureaucracy duplicating services that used to be done by the police. Consider all the additional staff, buildings, supervision, ect. that this has created. In my opinion this is just another out of control Government agency.

[XLFD]

It now takes as much money to fund 911 dispatch for Mason Oceana than it does to fund the entirety of the Ludington Police and Fire Departments.  Thor looks at Marquette County's 911 partnership with the MSP as a bad thing, but the numbers seem to indicate the contrary.  When a county like Cass County has just 3000 fewer people than our county and provides 911 service for less than half for what we can do, why not ask why?  And why isn't there any straight answers coming from Ray and his buddy Thor?

[Thor]

Tom... I never said the partnership with MSP was a bad thing. I simply pointed out a much different dynamic about that facility than you were aware of. Something that could skew your comparison. 

Does anyone on this blog actually read a post before they open their mouths? 

As for Cass county, it would appear (with some research... what a concept) that it is a division of the sheriff office and is at the very least ran by a deputy. They would also appear to handle about 15k less calls per year than M/O 911. They are also funded to 1.3 million per year they just don't spend all of it. 

That would average out to an additional 41 calls per day though the course of the year

[shinblind]

... Cass County 9-1-1 Dispatch Center is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week all year round for the residents of Cass County.  The Central Dispatch Center employs 9 full-time and 2 part-time employees

Mason/Oceana 911 employs   (1) Director
                                          (1)Operations Manager
                                          (1) Administrative Assistant
                                         (3) Dispatcher/Supervisors
                                         (8) Dispatchers and (5) part time Dispatchers

the above data taken from their websites.

So I guess to handle an extra 40 phone calls per day takes a workforce that employs 19 rather than 11. 19 vs 11 yeah I can why we spend more. Do we really need 19?  Maybe we should look into hiring Cass county to run our 911 center

[AQUAMAN]

Thor, I apologize for the quick-read I do sometimes into the wee hours when I am dead tired and should be in bed. You're just so good and sensitive to the rest of the crew here that has been operating for 4+ years now. We look for truth, with facts and figures, mostly obtained thru the skewed LDN/MCP, and FOIA requests. XLFD has done a tremendous job in exposing fraud, negligence, crooked contracts, and other underhanded and unethical conduct for a long time now. If you can contribute in a fashion that is prudent and informative, I'm all for you. If you came here to drag others down every chance you get for insignificant/petty mistakes, you are doing this forum, and more importantly, yourself a disservice. Grow up and be adult is all I ask. As for the usual contributors of Willy, stump, and shinblind, I applaud your efforts to help this forum's readers get wisdom in truth. I also noticed that you Thor, were on this forum this morning at 10 am when I first looked, and now it's 12:30am, and you're still here. Wth kind of obsession for spying do you have here pal?

[Thor]

Just a browser tab left open :)

[XLFD]

Thor,

Your implication when you mentioned Marquette and the MSP sharing facilities is that it would be something that wouldn't have worked here, hence the 'bad' reference.  You seem to believe that our 911 cannot function with any less money, personnel, or change in its organization.  I think otherwise.  I think it would have been a good thing in hindsight to have had the Hart Post of the MSP in with the new dispatch center, like the savants of Marquette County did nearly 20 years prior in the town of Negaunee.

Providing Shinblind's data is correct which it appears to be, I would say your Cass County research was a little off.  Thanks for the supplemental data, Shinners.

[AQUAMAN]

Meanwhile, back to the thread that we are supposed to be interpreting and making sound debate on. I'll just bet we don't need two chiefs for this operation, like a Director, and an Operations manager. One of these people should be able to carry the load alone. That alone would probably cut $50-75K out of the equation to start. How much do these two chiefs make independently? Of further interest is whether the dispatchers and underlings are union or non-union paid. I'll be they are union, making $20/hr., instead of $12/hr. That alone would save another$240K. Okay, without doing much rocket science, I just saved this 911 center about $300K, just under half of their usual expenses for labor alone, and more if you include the employee taxes and withholdings. Wth is subscriptions too? Do they really need any at all? I'll bet any common business executive could streamline this operation to half of it's present budget in no time, with no sweat, if anyone really wanted to. Depreciation? Some of the books look to me like they are being cooked over, to fool Joe Taxpayer into believing all this is necessary imho. Lastly, we have the scenario that no real dispatch for non-emergency situations exists now. You can't call LPD and get any dispatcher to get petty services for non-violent, non-serious crimes now. Everything has to go thru 911. I have said for years that this is silly. That staff of 19 is ridiculous at best. I'll bet any sound private industry executive could cut that staff by 33-50%, get better results, and have a sound budget in no time. Trouble is, they already have gotten away with this for so long, that it's almost impossible to reverse the trend, unless it was determined that a total restructuring was the best way to go. 

[Thor]

Tom, My research on Cass is right on as reported to the state of Michigan. The directory of the Cass 911 system is an Lt I would assume for the Sheriff department so he has other duties and responsibilities than to just run 911 in that county. The point of that being his whole salary is probably not part of the 911's budget and is instead out of the Sheriff's personnel budget. 

I also stated as the budgets for the county show that they are funded to 1.3 million per year. They spend roughly $800-$900k so they bank the rest. They currently have over 1 million in savings (if i'm reading their financial report right). 

As far as staffing levels go there appears to be a rough formula to determine that provided here. Since non of us are aware of the work flow at M/O 911 or how many systems they monitor etc. I would think it would be hard to judge their staffing decisions. 

As far as administration staffing goes i'm not sure... I would think an "administrative assistant" might be a position that could be re distributed or set to part time if it's not already but we really don't have access to job descriptions and duties to make that kind of a judgment call. 

[Thor]

for some reason my last post was truncated by the site.. here is the less wordy point it made.

It takes 600-1200 hours to train a dispatcher over 6 months and $10k. Do we really want the turn over that $12 an hour would bring... some people at wal-mart make more than $12 an hour. This isn't a high school grads first job.

Depreciation:

911 center has over 3 million in equipment assets most of them technology based with an average refresh cycle if it's like most business of 2-5 years for software and hardware. I would venture a guess that radios would be only slightly longer.

Consolidation of buildings like MQT did with MSP:

A great idea!! it should have been thought of and proposed in 2002 before they build a brand new building that isn't big enough to absorb the MSP post, nor is the MSP post in Hart able to absorb a state of the art 911 center. 20/20 hind site is just that hind site.. there isn't much we can do about it now.

Summed up this millage is only for 6 years. I say we fund them with that now since they think it's what they need to operate. While they have the understanding that we want the books thrown open and some answers to some of the points brought up here or they won't be getting a renewal of it if they ask for it in 6 years. In this time the issue of privatizing it can be addressed and the issue of staffing levels and efficiency can be addressed. The potential risk to public safety by not funding this I feel is too great to accept.