LUCAS COUNTY, Ohio — It's a lot quieter around the Sylvania Police Department.
As of Oct. 26, it's one of three regions in the Lucas County area that have already deferred its 911 dispatch calls to the Lucas County Emergency Services Building in downtown Toledo.
"So that means now that whether you call from Maumee or the city of Toledo, your call doesn't need to be transferred and it won't go to the wrong place; it will always go to one centralized place county-wide. "
Matt Heyrman with the Lucas County Commissioner's Office says consolidating call centers could save residents as much as $5 million a year, bringing in plenty of benefits without changes to service.
"Those call centers are sitting there not receiving calls," Heyrman said. "This allows us to all come together and benefit from the size of scale. So by scale, we're able to have the appropriate number of call-takers answer all of those calls but not have as much downtime, creating tremendous efficiency."
One major change now has call-takers and dispatchers falling into two different roles.
"So it means the call-taker can focus just on the caller," Heyrman explained. "At the same time as that call-taker is taking the information from the caller, the information is being sent electronically to the dispatcher who is then, in real-time, able to talk to the unit and give good, quality information to that first responder."
Previously, a local dispatcher would send their city's first responders out. Now, dispatchers have to cover the entirety of Lucas County.
One Sylvania police officer WTOL 11 spoke with has concerns about familiarity. However, Stacy Mitchell, the Executive Director at the Emergency Services Building, says they're working to make sure dispatchers know the neighborhoods.
"We went through training to provide them with updated, county-wide common practices and policies," Mitchell said. "And, we've provided some in-classroom training."
Maumee and Oregon are scheduled to join the consolidated dispatch on Nov. 2.