BSO, Ft. Lauderdale Avert 911 Shutdown With 1 Week Reprieve
FORT LAUDERDALE (CBS4) – The Broward Sheriff's Office and the City of Fort Lauderdale, locked in a battle over the dispatching of emergency calls, stepped back from the brink of a possible weekend shut-down of 911 service by making a temporary deal with BSO Friday.
Broward County and the city are in a dispute over who should pay the $5.7 million annual cost for 911 dispatch servioce that was not included in the new budget, which begins Saturday.
"Thanks to the cooperative efforts of the three governmental entities, we are pleased to announce that an agreement is now in place that will enable the Broward Sheriff's Office to continue to provide emergency dispatch services to the City of Fort Lauderdale through Thursday, October 6, 2011,"said Ft. Lauderdale Mayor Jack Seiler, in a statement released Friday afternoon.
"On October 6, a joint meeting between the Fort Lauderdale City Commission and the Broward County Board of County Commissioners will take place at 2:00 p.m. at Broward Governmental Center. This meeting will provide both the City and the County with an opportunity to further examine this issue and work toward a mutually acceptable long-term solution"
BSO has a 75-person staff that works out of the Fort Lauderdale Police Station on Broward Boulevard answering 911 calls and then dispatching officers. The arrangement has come under fire as the county and cities face budget deficits caused by falling property tax rolls.
The county warned Fort Lauderdale a year ago that it must start paying for the dispatch operations. The city, though, didn't budge when it drew up its 2012 budget, insisting that the county is obligated to pay under a 16-year-old contract as well as state emergency management law
