A stalemate appears to be ending between the Broward Sheriff’s Office and county leaders over who’s in charge of Broward’s 911 dispatch services.
The apparent compromise ends weeks of infighting.
“It sounded turfy — 'I want control of the system or I’m not doing it. You’re not getting control of the system, we’ll take it away from you,' on and on and on," said Commissioner Michael Udine. "I can tell you that the public has no appetite for any of this stuff with any turf battles.“
County commissioners thought they may have to start from scratch to find an operator for their troubled 911 dispatch services system after the sheriff let a contract to operate it expire.
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But now, they said, Sheriff Gregory Tony wants to continue the partnership between his agency and the county. The sheriff said in a letter he wrote Monday to the county's administrator that BSO "is interested in continuing to serve as the operator for the call-taking/dispatch functions."
“We ended up in consensus to allow the sheriff to continue with our call centers and the county will continue to do technology components," said county Mayor Lamar Fisher. "It’s a win-win for both components."
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Staffing shortages and technology problems plagued the emergency dispatch system over the last year, leaving critical calls to 911 unanswered.
Judy Garwood’s house burned down last April. 911 never picked up one of her four calls for help.
More than $11 million was approved to fix these problems, and staffing has improved — but then the contract with BSO to operate the call centers lapsed on Jan. 1.
With agreement on the horizon, the county wants to keep a close eye on monthly data on the call centers to track progress.
“So that we can watch the trend lines and the public and cities can watch the trend lines and make sure they’re going in the right direction," Commissioner Beam Furr said.
The mayor said a contract between the county and BSO could be signed as soon as Wednesday.
"My hope is that ... our leadership teams can immediately begin working together to review and evaluate the priorities expressed by the Broward Sheriff's Office," Tony said in the letter. "The expectation is that the county and BSO will come to an understanding on operational issues that these mutually agreed upon issues can be formalized into a new agreement for the continued call-taking/dispatch operation by BSO."
