By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

            When hurricanes hit Levy County, a band of elite young women work through the storm in a dark, cramped, stuffy little room near the county jail providing essential communications to citizens, law enforcement, emergency medical services, and fire departments.

            These women are sheriff’s office 911 dispatchers, or telecommunicators as they are known in the modern era, who work in a building that isn’t hurricane-proof. They are in some degree of danger from the fierce winds outside their building should the roof get torn off or the building collapse.

            Levy County Commissioners have been working with Sheriff Bobby McCallum for months on a plan to move the dispatchers to the nearby Levy County Emergency Management building after the structure is expanded to accommodate the dispatching center and emergency management in separate areas of the building.

            Commissioners sent a package to Tallahassee recently making a formal request of the Florida Senate and Florida House to provide a state appropriation of $13.5 million to expand the emergency management building for 911 telecommunications operations as well as emergency management functions.

            When State Rep. Chuck Clemons, R-Newberry, and State Sen. Keith Perry, R-Gainesville, appeared locally for their annual Legislative Delegation Hearing on Jan. 20, County Commission Chairman Matt Brooks, backed by commissioners John Meeks, Desiree Mills, and Tim Hodge, asked the two legislators to introduce legislation to fund the $13.5 million request. Brooks said the county commission would provide an additional $2.6 million for the project.

            “We got people packed in there like sardines,” Brooks told the lawmakers describing the dispatch center. “It’s kind of burdensome. We want to expand the existing Emergency Operations Center. We think the existing EOC would be a perfect place to do that expansion.”

            While Clemons and Perry were not in a position to make a commitment after listening to the board’s brief presentation, McCallum said he thinks the proposal has a good chance in the legislature this year with two senior lawmakers positioned well to make it happen.

            McCallum said he mentioned the project to Gov. Ron DeSantis when the governor visited Levy County last year and made suggestions on how to get the funding approved.

            “He gave me ideas. The legislative delegation is going to be the key. We’ve got to get in there early,” McCallum said of the Florida Legislature’s spring session. The Legislature will convene on April 10. McCallum said sheriffs will meet with the legislature for one day in March.

            “The Levy County Commission has been good and I don’t fail to remind them of how desperate we are. We can’t keep going like we are. These dispatchers have families. They don’t need to be sitting in there in 90 to 100 mile per hour winds dispatching.”

            McCallum said the 911 dispatching center was constructed in the 1990s using inmate labor and sheriff’s department employees. Hubert Capps, who was a licensed contractor at the time and a sheriff’s employee, headed up the construction project. The sheriff’s office detectives are housed in the same building.

            The sheriff said he knows the county commission has a constrained tax base. The word constrained means the value of private property in the county isn’t enough to maintain county government operations. The county looks to the state for additional support.

            “I do thank the county commission for what they do and I respect the citizens paying the taxes, and we spend it wisely,” McCallum said. “If we can get some of this grant money from the state, it would be about the only way we could do this project,” McCallum said.

            The sheriff said the number of dispatchers needed to communicate with the public and police, fire, and medical services has grown as the county has increased in population and the call load has spiked. He said he usually has five dispatchers on duty, more than double what he had when he took office.

            Base pay for a dispatcher is $35,000 annually. When they become certified dispatchers in law enforcement, emergency medical services, and fire dispatching, their base pay rises to $40,000 annually, which is competitive with surrounding counties. Deputy Sheriffs earn a starting base pay of $45,000 annually, which is also competitive with surrounding counties.

            The Florida Legislature increased the base pay of deputies and dispatchers in 2022 when it became apparent that small counties like Levy County were in desperate straits trying to fill vacant positions.

            The Levy County 911 Communications Center is a certified center. The sheriff’s office trains its own dispatchers in a local academy. McCallum said the dispatchers need more room in the communications center itself but they also need space for training their telecommunicators in the academy.

            State law says the 911 Communications Center must be physically separate from the Emergency Operations Department. After the EOC is expanded, an employee from emergency management couldn’t just walk into the 911 Communications Center to speak with dispatchers. Everything on the computer screens of dispatchers is considered confidential and the dispatchers can’t be distracted. The 911 Center responds to life and death calls around the clock, 365 days a year.

            “It’s the lifeline of the county’s communications – law enforcement, emergency medical services, and fire services – everything,” McCallum said.

Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt February 3, 2023; Posted February 3, 2023