The Vicksburg-Warren 911 Communications board wants to increase its dispatcher staff by four full-time dispatchers and the authority to hire additional part-time dispatchers as needed to help reduce overtime costs for the communications center.

The seven-member commission voted 6-0 to send letters to the Warren County Board of Supervisors and the Board of Mayor and Aldermen asking each board to approve the request for additional manpower.

Mayor George Flaggs Jr. left the meeting before vote. Flaggs said later he had to attend another meeting, adding he would have recused himself from voting because as mayor he would have to address the issue as a member of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen.

“I didn’t think I would be setting the right example,” he said.

Presently, E911 director Chuck Tate said, he has 17 full- and four part-time dispatchers, with one full-time dispatcher working a “swing shift” from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. One of the part-time dispatchers is his administrative assistant, who splits time between her office and being a dispatcher. Another full-time dispatcher is the center’s training officer.

Three of the full-time dispatchers are in training, he said, and two other part-time dispatchers are in law enforcement and work on off-duty hours. A fourth part-time dispatcher is restricted to working 20 hours a week.

Adding the four full-time dispatchers, he said, would eliminate overtime, allow the center to be fully staffed and cost between $85,280 and $86,320 a month in salary and benefits and increase the number of full-time dispatchers to 21, allowing at least four dispatchers per shift, while the additional part-time workers could fill in when someone is sick or otherwise unable to work.

“We are working three dispatchers per shift when we should have four,” Tate said. “We’ve got overtime every shift. Every shift has one person working overtime.”

He said one dispatcher from a shift that is not on duty serves as an on-call dispatcher, meaning they are subject to be called to work if something major occurs or if a dispatcher calls in sick.

“About 75 to 80 percent of the time, someone is off for one reason or another — training, sick or vacation,” Tate said. “When that happens, the on-call dispatcher is called in, and if someone else gets sick on a shift, another off-duty dispatcher comes on.”

And the situation is presently aggravated, he said, because of a new police department policy requiring officers to make self-initiated traffic stops.

“The other day, we had to tell the officers to use their TAC (frequency) through police department front desk,” Tate said. “We had so many calls coming in, we couldn’t keep track of them, and that’s an officer safety issue.”

Hiring part-time dispatchers to fill in when a full-time dispatcher is out, will not affect the E911 budget, he said.

“What it means is you’ve got somebody covering for someone who’s out and you’re not paying overtime,” he said. “You’ve got to have a certain amount of people to handle business; you just have to have them. If you have a limited staff, you’ve got to bring someone in on overtime. If I bring in a part-time person it costs less.”

Warren County Emergency Management Director John Elfer, said the city and county boards need to consider lifting the restriction on the number of part-time people Tate can hire.

“ I think you’ve got to compromise on some of this stuff,” he said. “It’s all about financials, and part-time is a good compromise.”