Budget Meeting is Friday for New Tri-City Police Dispatch Center

The board of directors for the newly developed West Central Dispatch Center is set to meet Friday morning to discuss the budget.

Town and Country, Frontenac and Creve Coeur city leaders are aggressively moving forward with the new tri-city police dispatch center.

"We always review our services to the community. This is the one thing we could find where we could actually increase our services, our capabilities to serve the community while reducing costs. Trying to find that in today's economy its rare so that's why we're real excited about this," Frontenac Police Chief Tom Becker said.

The Town and Country Board of Alderman voted to be part of the new center on Nov. 22 and the first board of directors meeting was held Nov. 24.

That meeting was mainly organizational as leaders from all three cities began determining what bank they'll use, who their legal counsel will be, insurance coverage, pension, holidays, vacation and how existing dispatchers who get hired by the new entity will carry over any vested time.

No clear answers came from that meeting and there is still much more to figure out, including whether more cities will join the group.

Town and Country City Administrator and Police Chief and current Chairman of the West Central Dispatch Center John Copeland said any city would have to be a"good fit" to be accepted at this point. Ladue is one city mentioned in previous discussions among those developing the new center.

"They would be a candidate if they applied. I think they would be a solid candidate. I'm not going to say whether they're going to or not going to, that's up to them," Copleland explained.

What the board of directors does know is that the new center will be housed in Town and Country's current police dispatch center at the city's . Some Town and Country equipement will be used, plus more will need to be purchased.

Board members also adopted a salary structure. Entry level communication specialists will earn $35,000 to $52,000, the next level up starts at $38,000 and the general manager will be paid between $60,000 and $80,000. The goal is to have the GM hired by the beginning of 2011.

"I have not seen any formal applications yet. I do know there are some people in the area who have expressed interest that are very capable people so we're confident we're going to get a good solid candidate," Copleland said.

The next board of directors meeting is 8:30 a.m. Friday at the Town and Country Municipal Center. Board members are expected to adopt a budget and act on bids and proposals for construction, legal, banking and business services.

Check back to Patch.com Friday for a breakdown on what happened in that meeting.