Creve Coeur To Consolidate Police Dispatch Services

In police circles, agencies commonly talk about working together with other departments on cases. Now, the city of is literally banking on the concept to cut costs without cutting services. City council has given final approval for dispatching services to be consolidated with those in Town and Country and Frontenac. The three municipalities have come together to form the West Central Dispatch Center. 

Creve Coeur currently pays for its own dispatching service at a cost of $500,000. City officials say merging those services will save $100,000, with the potential for more savings if additional agencies join in, as Police Chief Glen Eidman expects. This arrangement does not currently include the .

"Its always hard to get started on something like this," he said after city council members approved the measure Nov. 22. There had been talks with Glendale about joining the other cities, which later declined to move forward. " We just don't want to wait anymore. We feel we're prepared and ready to go," Eidman said.

The coalition draws on the experience of the East Central Dispatch Center, founded in 2002. Those participating communities include Maplewood, Clayton, Richmond Heights, Webster Groves, Clayton and Shrewsberry in an operation based out of the Richmond Heights Public Safety Building.  The WCDC will be based out of Town and Country.

The biggest difference between the operations may be the West Dispatch plan to use remote video monitoring of those behind bars at each city's jail or holding cell facility.  Eidman says doing that will allow for greater cost savings beyond the elimination of 3 dispatcher positions in each city. There will be staffing adjustments to make sure the Creve Coeur Government Center remains staffed by police and public works personnel daily.  A newly-received credit card machine and an agreement with the St. Louis County jail are examples of steps the city is also taking to make sure the people are not held in custody there for longer than 24 hours.

WCDC will be governed by a board of directors including city administrators for each of the participating communities.  The search for a general manager to run the day-to-day operations has already begun, with 14 local candidates filling applications as of Tuesday. Once a GM is on board, the agency will take applications for dispatchers, with hopes of finding positions for most if not all the existing staff.

"This is the one thing we could find where we could actually increase our services, our capabilities to serve the community while reducing costs," said Frontenac Police Chief Tom Becker. "Trying to find that in today's economy its rare so that's why we're real excited about this. "