New Police Dispatch Contract Saves Caldwell $50K

Caldwell recently finalized a new joint police dispatch service agreement with West Caldwell that will save the borough more than $50,000.

The new contract, which lasts through Dec. 31, 2013, will cost Caldwell $62,500 for the remainder of 2010 and a flat rate of $125,000 each of the next three years to be paid in monthly installments of $10,416.66. The borough had payed $178,115 in the final year of the previous three-year agreement, which expired on June 30. 

"We looked at it purely as economics," said Caldwell Councilman Peter Murray, who's a member of the public safety committee. "What will it cost us to train all of our police officers? What would it cost us to upgrade the hardware, including an alarm panel, which would have been around $25,000, and hiring people to work around the clock?

"To me, economically, there were very few complaints that turned out to have any merit, so we figured if we could get the same service at a cost of $50,000 or $60,000 less, why not?"

According to West Caldwell Mayor Joseph Tempesta, the new contract is "pretty much the same as the previous agreement with a few caveats added for terms and duration."

The former contract began at a rate of $160,868 in 2008 and went up to $169,271 in 2009 before rising to nearly $180,000 in the final year.

According to Tempesta, the rising costs were due to upgrades that were needed to the police department's dispatch center. Now that the infrastructure is in place, reaching an agreement with a flat rate was possible, the mayor said.

"Those were one-time costs for infrastructure upgrades," Tempesta said. "We were able to reach this new agreement with Caldwell because of the combination of stability in our equipment and we now have a partnership with Caldwell for six years. We're very comfortable with our situation with Caldwell and we were able to flatten our costs."

Either of the municipalities can opt out of the final year of the new contract, which was finalized this month and took effect July 1, if written notice is provided by March 31, 2012.

In addition, the contract enables West Caldwell to provide similar dispatch services to other municipalities as well as long as it "does not diminish the quality of dispatch services provided to Caldwell under the terms of this agreement."

According to Tempesta, the municipality has discussed providing the service to Roseland and Essex Fells.

West Caldwell has had two previous three-year contracts with Caldwell for joint police dispatch and recently finalized a Kiwanis Oval and new recreation contracts with its neighbors. More shared and joint services are likely, Tempesta said.

"We're developing better relations with Caldwell. We have the Oval agreement and the recreation services agreement and we're working toward other shared services with them," Tempesta said. "We're on the cusp of getting even stronger with sharing and merging services."