Communications breakdown(?)

The on-again-off-again discussions between Cheney and Eastern Washington University over renewal of a contract for the city’s Police Department dispatch services appears to be on again.

Maybe.

Contract negotiations, first brokered in 2006-2007, began in October 2014, with Cheney seeking an increase in what the university pays for services more in line with the amount Eastern uses the system, particularly dispatch call volumes. According to an Oct. 27 memo to Police Chief John Hensley from Cathy Munoz, Cheney Police Department’s director of communication, Eastern paid about 17 percent of the city’s 2014 dispatch budget of $522,000, or just over $89,750. Eastern’s portion of the $560,600, 2015 dispatch budget amounts to about $91,000, stemming from an increase by the Spokane Consumer Price Index at the end of 2014.

The issue for Cheney is Eastern’s portion of dispatch calls has increased significantly. According to Munoz, as of September 2014, computer activated dispatch (CAD) calls for EWU officers accounted for 45 percent of all calls to Cheney dispatch while the university accounted for 64 percent of the units regularly monitored over the radio.

“Over the last five years, EWU PD has accounted for an average of 40.43 percent of the CAD calls,” Munoz wrote. “When I performed the same analysis in January 2012, the five-year average was 27 percent.”

In a memo to City Council, Mayor Tom Trulove said Hensley had proposed several new ways of calculating EWU’s cost for service to university Police Chief Tim Walters. It was an increase university officials balked at as being too high.

EWU’s vice president for business and finance, Mary Voves, said she didn’t have the exact numbers in front of her, and added making them public while still in negotiations wouldn’t be fair to the city.

“But it was a considerable increase,” she said.

Trulove said those October talks were the last to take place between the two parties for some time — until city officials received word through the law enforcement grapevine that EWU had decided to pull out of the contract and begin negotiations with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office for dispatch services.

“I don’t like hearing that from other people,” Trulove said.

Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said discussions between Eastern and the county about dispatch service possibilities has taken place several times over the years, but nothing that was very substantial. This year, those talks became more pointed, he said.

“I think it was basically economy of scale that brought us to this point,” Knezovich said.

Frustrated with the situation, Trulove sent an email and letter to EWU President Dr. Mary Cullinan on May 26, asking what the university’s intentions were and for a renewal of contract dialogue as quickly as possible. Cheney’s concern is a dispatcher is set to retire at the end of 2015, and the city needs to know if it should hire a replacement.

According to the city, wages and benefits for a new dispatcher would be just below $91,000, roughly EWU’s share of the 2015 dispatch contract. If the university does not renew the contract and signs with the county, the dispatcher would not be needed.

If that decision came after the dispatcher was hired, Trulove said it would likely be necessary to lay that individual off. The dispatch contract between Cheney and EWU is scheduled to expire Nov. 30.

On May 29, Cullinan responded to the city’s letter by saying university staff had been working with Cheney staff to arrive at a “cost effective, efficient and responsive dispatch service” for the university while also keeping costs down. She also noted the university was exploring options for being part of a larger communications network, regional record management system and enhanced emergency management response, command and control.

Without a firm understanding on renewing the contract, and with a contractual requirement to give six months notice of intention to opt out fast approaching, the city elected that same day to send a notice to Voves that it was exercising its option to not renew the dispatch contract. At this point, Knezovich said discussions between the county and the university took a more serious turn.

“Before it was always in the realm of what would it look like if,” he said. “When they (Cheney) sent the letter, it was more firm.”

Voves disputes the city’s claim that discussions have been nonexistent since October, saying there was a great deal of discussion. She confirmed the university was exploring all options, including weighing Cheney’s costs and levels of service against the county’s.

But she said they are still in negotiations with the city, noting she had met with Trulove and City Administrator Mark Schuller last week.

“We still have lots of places of agreement,” she said. “I don’t think that the door is even closed.”

Cheney officials say there are many things they provide in the way of police services to the university that the county would not be able to, forcing EWU to either contract out for those services or provide them in house. It’s a claim not disputed by Voves or Knezovich.

Trulove feels the city has done a lot to customize its dispatch services to fit Eastern’s needs. If they should decide to go with the county, however, it wouldn’t necessarily be a loss to the city.

“It’s not like we’re begging them,” he added.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].