Simple and direct.

That’s a mantra Chuck Tate is teaching dispatchers at Vicksburg Warren E-911 to keep calls moving at the multifaceted center.

“What’s your exact location? What’s your callback number? What’s the nature of your emergency? Simple straightforward questions,” Tate told the Vicksburg Lions Club Wednesday. “We need to give something to the corresponding agencies to work with to respond so they’ll have a game plan when they arrive on scene.”

A new Computer Aided Dispatch system goes online Dec. 2 at the center located at First North and Clay streets. Purchased earlier this year, the system is built to relay real-time information to law enforcement offices in the field as a call evolves, Tate said.

Still, Tate said, there’s no substitute for being short and to the point when it comes to reporting emergencies. Calls of all types are handled at the center, ranging from medical emergencies and car wrecks to requesting an officer to file a report for less severe incidents.

“We have six primary and emergency lines and eight administrative lines,” Tate said. “What’s the 15th person get? A busy signal.

“You’re going to have time when you have unanswered 911 calls. The center can only handle so much.”

Voters in Vicksburg and Warren County approved the centralized dispatch in 1989. Since then, the annual budget for the facility run by a seven-member board of city and county officials has grown to nearly $1.3 million. Much of that is technology-driven, including the new CAD, which cost $309,000.

It remains among the busiest emergency dispatch operations in the state because all calls for contact with law enforcement officers are transferred there. The center averaged nearly 9,100 calls in 2013, a mark Tate expects to easily reach in 2014.

Either of the center’s 12-hour shifts can get busy at any time, Tate said. One case in point was on Oct. 17 when two small grass fires along Interstate 20 in Vicksburg kept dispatchers’ headsets white-hot.

“We probably had 200 calls in a five-minute period,” Tate said, adding the current staff size of 17 full-time and four part-time dispatchers is too small in relation to the call volume for the center to be certified by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, a key industry standard.

Salaries for secretaries, the deputy director and director account for roughly $128,000 of the annual budget and are paid via surcharges added to home and cellphone bills. Salaries for dispatchers are paid for with a 65 percent contribution from the city and a 35 percent contribution from the county.

Seats on the E-911 Commission are held by Atkins, District 1 Supervisor John Arnold, Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace, Vicksburg Mayor George Flaggs Jr., Vicksburg Police Chief Walter Armstrong, Warren County Volunteer Fire Coordinator Jerry Briggs and Warren County Emergency Management Director John Elfer.