Emails show city, county working on 911 interlocal agreement
Published 8:24 am Thursday, May 4, 2017
Discussions about a 911 interlocal agreement are moving forward following a Boyle County Fiscal Court meeting Tuesday, when magistrates expressed a desire to reach an agreement with the City of Danville.
Judge-Executive Harold McKinney summed up Tuesday’s meeting for Danville City Manager Ron Scott in an email sent Tuesday afternoon, explaining what the fiscal court voted to do.
“We want to pay our fair share of 911 expenses … we want to make a determination of what that fair share is,” McKinney wrote. “We want to execute an interlocal agreement to memorialize whatever conclusion we come to about fair share … we want you to convene a meeting directly of all the players to craft this interlocal agreement.”
McKinney also noted the fiscal court wants to participate in funding “emergency medical dispatch services,” which would allow local dispatchers to provide guidance to callers on basic medical treatments such as CPR. And he restated what several magistrates said Tuesday — that the county is in favor of Danville taking over full responsibility for the 911 call center.
“We want to turn over the operation of the E911 Center to Danville AND with that the responsibility to collect from three other entities that should be paying. Perryville, Junction City and the Boyle County Fire Department,” McKinney wrote. “We want this, as you said, to be a win-win for everyone, particularly the constituencies we serve.”
Scott replied an hour and a half later, thanking McKinney “for your willingness as county judge to engage (with your staff) in problem-solving discussions and to take the responsive and responsible actions you have identified.”
“… our capable city attorney (Stephen Dexter) has started the process of obtaining a model agreement and will be working on a draft for our review,” Scott wrote. “… we will plan to broaden our discussions to include other governmental bodies … but that might be a bit following the initial work to develop a framework for consideration and agreement.”
Scott wrote in another email Tuesday that completing the process of an interlocal agreement — which would in theory spell out the financial responsibilities of all involved agencies for 911 service in Boyle County and the county’s incorporated cities — is “extremely complicated and will be time-consuming to draft, which is probably the single greatest reason it hasn’t been done to date.”
“… this will be a process spanning several months (in all probability),” Scott wrote. “In spite of the magnitude of the challenge, I think we are now at the point in time where work can begin on this issue and it can be completed within several months.”