Medford is working with Somerville and Melrose on a plan that would have the cities consolidate emergency communication services by creating a joint 911 dispatch center.

The move would regionalize 911 call answering and emergency dispatch functions, eliminating the need for dispatchers at police and fire departments in each of the three cities.

For several years, the cities have worked with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) to discuss a shared center. According to a report dated March 14 and published on MAPC’s website, the cities are expected to meet this spring to sign an inter-municipal agreement for combining emergency communication services.

The agreement would require approval of the Medford City Council and board of aldermen in both Somerville and Melrose.

“We are very close to signing an agreement,” said Medford Mayor Stephanie M. Burke earlier this month.

Burke, Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone and Melrose Mayor Rob Dolan have played key roles in discussions on the consolidation of dispatch services, an effort facilitated by MAPC.

Curtatone spokesperson Jackie Rossetti said in an email that Somerville was looking forward to finalizing an agreement for the center.

“We are very early in the overall process, and there are still many decisions to be made,” Rossetti said. “But we look forward to working with our regional and municipal partners as we collaborate on this important project for the safety of our communities.

Dolan, meanwhile, said Melrose was still evaluating other options, such as combining its own police and fire dispatch services.

“It’s pretty far along,” Dolan said of planning for the regional center with Medford and Somerville. “We have to do something with dispatch. Whether we do combined dispatch [or regionalize], it’s going to take some time. We like [the regional plan], but we’re still researching it and really doing our due diligence.

“Melrose is a smaller city,” Dolan continued. “There’s a question of whether [Melrose would receive] monetary operational value for this. [But] it’s the wave of the future.”

Based on current dispatch costs and estimates for a new regional dispatch center, MAPC estimates each of the three cities would save money.

The move would also allow the cities to reassign police officers and firefighters who work in each of the cities’ dispatch centers, said Rebecca Davis, MAPC’s deputy director.

MAPC provided the following data indicating personnel currently assigned to each of the cities’ dispatch operations:

Medford: Two police dispatchers and one fire dispatcher per shiftSomerville: Three civilian dispatchers and two fire dispatchers per shiftMelrose: Two police dispatchers and one fire dispatcher per shift (only two dispatchers overnight)

Davis said combining services would allow the cities to have more officers on the street.

“They’re looking at how can they most effectively use the officers they have,” she said.

National trend

Discussions on the consolidation of dispatch services date to at least 2009, when the State 911 Department launched a grant program to incentivize regional dispatch centers.

Proponents of the centers, including MAPC, say they improve emergency response services, reduce costs and facilitate collaboration among public safety agencies.

“It’s a real way to get more professionalized service,” Davis said.

One of the biggest advantages of regionalized dispatch centers is access to state funding for significant technology upgrades, said Gregory Miao, municipal services specialist for MAPC.

Miao said the center would be equipped to receive calls directly from cell phones. Currently, cell phone calls to dispatchers in Medford, Somerville and Melrose are routed through a regional call center in Essex County.

“It saves you probably a minute plus in your response time,” Miao said.

MAPC has worked with municipalities across the region to consolidate dispatch services, a nationwide trend that hasn’t fully taken root in Massachusetts.

As of 2013, the state’s 351 municipalities operated approximately 270 separate 911 call centers, “a degree of fragmentation far greater than most other states,” according to a 2013 MAPC study.

The report notes all emergency calls in neighboring New Hampshire go to a single call center. It also states Maryland, a state with comparable size and population, has one-tenth the number of call centers as Massachusetts.

“The fragmentation of emergency communications can be both inefficient and ineffective,” the report states. “Staffing multiple separate centers is more likely to result in a mismatch between the staffing resources and the demand for services, and equipping these centers can require separate investments in redundant resources.

“At the same time, small local emergency communications operations can fall short of optimal performance levels when they lack the resources of larger centers to staff, train and equip the operation to professional standards.”

Original plan

In 2013, MAPC helped secure grant funding for a technical consultant to produce a regional dispatch center implementation plan for Medford, Somerville, Melrose and four other cities: Chelsea, Everett, Malden and Saugus.

According to MAPC reports, Malden and Saugus withdrew participation from the project in 2014. Still, a regional dispatch center run by the five remaining communities would have been “by far the largest regional emergency communications center in Massachusetts,” according to MAPC.

But Chelsea and Everett dropped out in 2015, leaving just Medford, Somerville and Melrose.

A similar process played out during the formation of the Essex Regional Emergency Communications Center in Middleton in 2014.

Original plans called for the center to combine emergency communication services of 13 municipalities. But just more than half (seven) of the communities signed on to join the center.

In January 2015, Beverly stopped participating because of delays in transitioning to shared dispatch services, according to a press release from the Essex County Sheriff’s Department.

Last March, Beverly filed a lawsuit against the Essex County Sheriff’s Department regarding $1 million of financial liability toward the center. The legal process is ongoing.

Municipalities are often hesitant to give up control of emergency response services out of fear centralized dispatchers will not know their communities as well as in-house dispatchers.

But MAPC officials said a new regional center would train groups of staff to focus on each city.

“There’s a group that works on Medford specifically, that works on Medford streets and roads,” said Mark Fine, MAPC’s director of municipal collaboration.

Fine said regional dispatch centers also improve record management and allow law enforcement agencies to access shared databases.

Despite the reduced scale of the project planned for Medford, Somerville and Melrose, MAPC officials said the center would be built to allow for other municipalities to join in the future.

“From what we’ve learned nationwide, once something’s up and running and people can see how efficiently it’s running, often what they see is that other communities decide to come along as well,” Davis said.

Possible site

If the project moves forward, a likely home for the new regional dispatch center is near Somerville’s Assembly Square, where the city is strongly considering building a new police headquarters.

Last year, Somerville Economic Development Director Ed O’Donnell said the city was looking to purchase four adjoining properties between Middlesex Avenue and McGrath Highway, near Somerville District court, along with a half-acre parcel at 845 Middlesex Ave.

Altogether, the purchase would include 2.5 acres of property.

Davis said the Somerville location is the primary site under consideration, adding MAPC has secured a $225,000 grant to design the dispatch center once the inter-municipal agreement is signed.

“I don’t want to say it’s definitely going to be there because we still have to go through the feasibility stage,” Davis said, adding the timeline for building the center was uncertain. “A lot of it really depends on the timeframe of the Somerville public safety center.”

— Melrose Free Press reporter Aaron Leibowitz, Somerville Journal reporter Danielle McLean and Beverly Citizen reporter Ethan Hartley contributed to this report.