The city of Cortez is proposing that agencies that use its dispatch center pay additional fees to cover the center’s cost for employee services such as payroll, benefits and human resources starting in 2022.
“It’s a best practice to do so,” Cortez Finance Director Ben Burkett said.
The dispatch center and its technology are funded through fees to the agencies that use it, including the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office, the Cortez Fire Protection District, the Southwest Ambulance Service and the Mancos Marshal’s Office.
Each user’s fee depends on the number of calls it has, or its percentage of the total use of the dispatch service.
Burkett and John Dougherty, the Cortez city manager, estimate the total costs of the new payroll and human resource fees to be $18,500 per year, which would also be divided based on call percentage.
Dougherty said the dispatch center is costly for the city to cover because of its high turnover rate. The hiring process and the training process for new dispatchers is expensive, he said.
Currently, the Cortez general fund incurs these costs – they haven’t been divided among the agencies that use the dispatch service, Burkett said.
“The city of Cortez is still going to be paying the bulk of the costs,” Burkett said. The city makes up 35% to 40% of the dispatch calls, according to the finance director.
Burkett said the city would start charging organizations that use its services in other departments as well, such as water and refuse.
The town of Mancos and the Mancos Marshal’s Office expressed concerns over the city of Cortez’s proposal in a Town Board meeting Sept. 23.
Heather Alvarez, town administrator for Mancos, met with Dougherty on Sept. 22 to discuss a proposal from the city of Cortez that agencies also pay rent for the dispatch center, totaling roughly $195,000 per year.
The dispatch center is roughly 1,000 square feet.
Alvarez said she told Dougherty in the “frank but friendly” discussion that $195 per square foot is not an acceptable rent price for this area.
“It would be cheaper to purchase another building rather than paying rent at this rate,” Alvarez said in a phone interview Wednesday.
Mancos pays anywhere from $54,000 to $65,000 per year for dispatch services. The proposed cost of rent would increase their bill to about $78,000 per year for dispatch services, Goodall said.
The Marshal’s Office is funded through the town of Mancos general budget. The more money that goes into services like dispatch, the harder it is for Mancos to pay for more staffing as the town grows, Goodall said.
The Marshal’s Office might need to cut funding for out-of-town community policing trainings, which would undercut Goodall’s efforts to increase the professionalism of the agency, he said.
“There has to be a more feasible way,” Goodall said. “I can understand a certain amount of rent, and that there are overhead costs, but I find it hard to believe there is $195,000 of overhead for 11 employees.”
The current contract between the town of Mancos and the city of Cortez for dispatch services prohibits the city from charging for costs such as rent, Alvarez said. And Mancos residents pay fees on their telephone and cell phone bills to access 911.
“This attempt to use funds specifically allocated for emergency services to balance the city of Cortez budget is unacceptable to the town of Mancos,” Alvarez said. “We oppose it, and we will continue to oppose it.”
Alvarez said Dougherty told her he would do more research into what they discussed, but Dougherty has not contacted the town of Mancos about the proposal since Sept. 22.
In a phone interview with The Journal on Wednesday, Dougherty and Burkett said they never proposed charging rent.
Dougherty said it was “not clear” where Alvarez and Goodall got the $195,000 number, but Sheriff Steve Nowlin had the same numbers as Alvarez in a county commissioners meeting Sept. 15.
“Mancos’ increase will be minimal, about $1,000 more,” Dougherty said.
The Cortez city manager did not respond to emails, calls or text messages about his conversation with Mancos officials as of Wednesday.
Nowlin also expressed concerns about the additional dispatch costs in the county commissioners meeting on Sept. 15.
“I think we fight the $190,000 (increase),” County Commissioner Larry Don Suckla said.
The county gave 10 acres to the city of Cortez for county assets, including operating a dispatch center free of charge to the county, which the city then sold to Osprey, Suckla said.
“That is wrong, there was an agreement over the 10 acres,” Suckla said.
Nowlin said that for less than $200,000 he would hire four dispatchers that would dispatch for the Sheriff’s Office.
“We are looking at separating from the city and doing something else,” Nowlin said.
ehayes@the-journal.com
