Worries persist about Johnson County Communications Center operations

Johnson County supervisors continued on Thursday their criticism of how a new joint emergency communication center is being run.

And the majority of them agreed to send the communication center's board a letter stating their concerns.

“It's the biggest regret I have in my whole time serving,” Rod Sullivan, who has been on the Board of Supervisors since 2004, said of voting for the agreement that helped establish how the communication center is governed.

The main complaints from four of the five supervisors were that communication from those overseeing the center has been poor and they are spending too much money.

There is dissatisfaction with the number of managers who will work at the center, and Supervisor Janelle Rettig criticized it for contracting out human resources, legal and information technology work.

Supervisor Pat Harney, who is also a member of the communication center board, noted that the Board of Supervisors previously voted against having the county provide some of that staffing support. He also said that because the center is not operational, its expenses are not yet fully known.

“I just don't like it when we stand up and say they're totally irresponsible,” he said. “I think that's wrong.”

Dispatchers will move into the center July 1, and it will be fully operational in the fall. The budget for operating expenses for next fiscal year is about $2.8 million.

The joint emergency communication center will serve all the public safety departments and emergency medical personnel in the county. Currently, Iowa City and Johnson County operate separate systems.

The center has long been lauded as a major public safety upgrade. None of the supervisors proposed pulling county support from the center, something that would be difficult to do given the nature of the project and the agreement Sullivan referenced.

But some supervisors have become increasingly dissatisfied with the management of the center.

That boiled over in January when supervisors raised objections to the communication center's budget, particularly its levy. The communication center board thought it was reducing the levy for next fiscal year, but it turned out the proposal was a tax increase.

That happened because the county changed the levy for this year without telling the communication center board.

That should not have occurred because the center is run by a seven-member board that has the final say over its budget. But the levy goes through the county so it can be collected countywide, which the supervisors admit makes them especially sensitive to the matter.

Mike Wright, who is chairman of the communication center board and is also on the Iowa City Council, said is was poor communication from the county that led to that problem.

“There's always room for more communication, and I think the JECC (joint emergency communication center) board is committed to communicating with the member communities as much as possible,” said Wright, who was not at Thursday's meeting.

The communication center board includes government officials from the county, Iowa City, Coralville and North Liberty. The county has the most members with three.

Wright, who was not at Thursday's meeting, also said he thought his board has been fiscally responsible and, like Harney, said expenses were difficult to predict because the center is new.

Day-to-day operations at the center are handled by an executive director. That position has been filled on an interim basis after Mike Sullivan resigned from the post in April following his drunken driving arrest.

A joint meeting of area officials to discuss the communication center is planned for May 28.