In the 1980's, as part of the increasing sentiment to merge government services in the name of efficiency and saving money, a number of Dane County governments came together to link their police, fire, and emergency medical dispatching services.
The result is the present system, which had two glaring failures in 2008, the murders of Brittany Zimmerman and Mark Johnson, as well as some not so high profile cases, since they are not linked to homicides.
From the beginning there were difficulties with the system. Madison Police Chief David Couper and his staff noted continued problems on a variety of issues. When I returned to the mayor's office in 1989, I was deeply concerned that the new system was a license for dispatchers to send city of Madison police to a disproportionate number of calls in the Town of Madison, thus allowing that community to maintain lower staffing needs than was required. We continued discussions with Dane County but could only work around the edges since we had neither management nor control over the system.
Chief Couper went so far as to suggest we pull out of the system and go back to having our own dispatchers. The cost to rebuild a city system was prohibitive.
For our efforts we were labeled malcontents and identified as poor players in the sandbox of governmental cooperation.
All of which leads to the simple uncontroverted fact that merging governmental services does not inevitably lead to saving money and it certainly does not necessarily lead to efficiency.
The problem occurs in the the planning of the merger and the expectations of the parties. There must be an understanding of the needs of the operators. In the case of the dispatch system, that is the police officers and firefighters. It is not sufficient to approve the merger and then shrug shoulders saying, "Those are details that can be worked out later."
Some government agencies serve their own unit of government - human resources and IT are two examples. Some serve the public - parks, police, fire, and health are examples. Some serve both the government and the public - examples are legal services, the clerk's office, and public safety dispatchers.
Too often, when merger is considered, thought is only given to serving the public (Zimmerman and Johnson) without consideration of the needs of serving the internal customers (police officers).
What happens is the service provider (dispatch) only thinks of the direct service to the citizen and the needs of the internal customer (police) to serve the customer is overlooked.
It does not have to be that way. Merger can work.
we shall see. the health merger seems to be anything but healthy.
Posted by: mandrake | December 16, 2008 at 11:38 AM
Middleton's EMS dispatching was forced into a shotgun marriage with the county. Thankfully we still do our own police dispatching. Our dispatchers feel like they are part of the team, and if they mess up (a rare occurrence) they have to look the patrol officers in the eye at the end of the shift. It brings a bitter laugh to recall all the promises and assurances Dane County Dispatch made to us regarding "their superior quality control" to our small operation.
Posted by: Alderman Steve | December 16, 2008 at 01:12 PM
You've been on a MAJOR roll the past few days...this stuff is gold. Kudos.
Posted by: Tim M. | December 16, 2008 at 02:51 PM
I seem to remember you warning specifically about this kind of thing during the Mayoral debates with (then, not yet) Mayor Dave. Ciezlewicz supporters at the time tried to label you as "condescending" and Dave mostly wanted to talk about "affordable housing". And here we are...
Posted by: A.J. Love | December 16, 2008 at 04:11 PM