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Union workers protest the possible privitazation of police dispatch during a march and rally in Camden City, July 7, 2015. (Michelle Caffrey | For NJ.com)

Tonya Quarles has been fielding 911 calls in the city of Camden for 14 years. But as the police dispatcher and Pennsauken resident marched with two dozen other union workers toward City Hall on Tuesday afternoon, she said the hardest part of her job isn't dealing with distressed callers or victims of violent crimes -- it's dealing with decisions she can't control.

Specifically, Quarles and other members of CWA Local 1014 are worried whether or not city council will decide to privatize its police dispatch services and take her and 24 other dispatchers off the city payroll.

"We need our jobs, and we are good at our jobs," said Quarles.

Privatization of government services is far from a new threat to the state's public workers, as rising health care costs, shrinking tax bases and a looming pension crisis make the option of contracting services out to private companies especially appealing in recent years.

Camden City Business Administrator Robert Corrales said the city is only in the early stages of exploring the possibility of privatizing dispatch, and a committee is currently reviewing two bids they received from outside companies following the city's request for bids earlier this year.

"We're just being a responsible government to see if there are any cost savings," said Corrales.

While the aim of Tuesday's march was to bring the union's concerns to the council at its caucus meeting, where the agenda for next week's meeting is set, Corrales said the city is still weeks away from making a recommendation to council about what direction to go toward.

"There are no definites," he said.

The CWA isn't waiting until then to make their concerns known, however.

"Companies care more about making a profit than they do about the safety of Camden," said Jim McAsey, a national staff representative with the CWA. "This rally is about good jobs, not just for 25 people but good jobs for all Camden workers."

Speaking at the rally, McAsey stressed that while only 25 workers would be impacted by the privatization of dispatch, it could be a slippery slope that leads to privatization of additional public jobs.

"If they privatize these jobs, who is next? You're next," said McAsey to the crowd. "We have to draw a line in the sand."

Union workers listen to CWA national staff representative Jim McAsey speak against the possible privitazation of police dispatch during a march and rally in Camden City, July 7, 2015. (Michelle Caffrey | For NJ.com)

Two companies, CRA, Inc. and IXP Corp. have submitted bids to take on the dispatch services. IXP's President and COO, Lawrence Consalvos, said the company is in its third year of handling dispatch services for one other municpality in the state, Lawrence Township, in Mercer County, and also handle dispatch for the city of Danbury, Connecticut and four towns in Georgia.

In each of those locations, Consalvos said they maintain local offices and hire local workers, and he said if Camden chose to contract with them, they would offer positions to its current dispatchers.

He said IXP, based in Princeton, can provide benefits to both the new workers it takes on as well as the city's bottom line. Since IXP is a performance-driven company that uses metrics to assess efficiency, he said its employees are paid for performance and that they would be making a higher wage than they currently do working for the city.

He added they also try to match the other factors that draw workers to public positions by offering good health benefits, a 401k plan with a company match, training programs and the opportunity for career growth into other areas of the company including management positions.

"Our folks are really very happy," said Consalvos, pointing to their less-than 10 percent turnover rate, which he said is far lower than the industry average of more than 20 percent.

For the city, or any other municipality looking to outsource its dispatch services, Consalvos said their multi-year, fixed-price contracts offers stability that is hard to come by in recent years as contractual salary raises and benefit cost increases kick in.

The cost of maintaining large public payrolls has just become too much for many towns, he said.

"We have customers who have more people on pension roles then they do on active public safety roles," Consalvos said, adding he has seen a shift in political thinking that's in favor of privatization. "It's just not sustainable any longer."

When it comes to the collective bargaining organizations that are vehemently opposed to his company's efforts, Consalvos had three words: "Compete with us."

That's the first step Camden's administration would look toward if the review of bids does result in a significant cost savings, said its business administrator Corrales.

"We would go through the whole process, go back to the union and see if we can negotiate ... If we can't get anywhere with that, then we go through the formal layoff process, which takes a couple of months" said Corrales. "But we're nowhere near laying anyone off yet."

Michelle Caffrey may be reached at mcaffrey @njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ShellyCaffrey. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.