Almost 20 years ago, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott pushed County Council to combine the City of Columbia’s + Richland County’s 911 emergency call system into one operation. They did – but now he says it’s no longer working efficiently and is looking into dividing the City + County’s systems again.
What’s wrong? So far this year, the call center has received 25 complaints about their service (out of ~1 million 911 calls). And in 2011, the County used tax revenue to purchase a $700K automatic police vehicle locator that would allow the center to locate + dispatch the officer closest to an incident – but the equipment has never been turned on. 😳
Currently, the joint City/County operation has 96 employees + a $6.3 million budget. If Lott were to open a City of Columbia-only center, it would have half the budget + half the jobs. Building a new facility would be expensive, but both Lott and Columbia City Manager Teresa Wilson are open to discussing the transition.
