Sikeston to take over Scott County Sheriff 911 services

SIKESTON — Sikeston will soon handle most of the 911 calls in Scott County after an agreement was approved by the Sikeston City Council during its Monday, Oct. 7 meeting.

The five-year agreement will see all Scott County 911 calls except those coming from Scott City handled by communications officers at Sikeston Department of Public Safety. The number of communications officers will increase from nine to 16 with a minimum of three operators working at all times.

“We’ve discussed this and have been working with the county commissioners for some time,” said Sikeston Mayor Greg Turnbow.

Sikeston DPS Capt. Ryan Smith said there are three primary dispatch services in Scott County that answer 911 calls: Sikeston DPS, Scott County Sheriff’s Office and Scott City Police Department.

“This will take the three 911 centers and merge it down to two with one on the north side of the county and one on the south side of the county,” Smith said.

The new agreement will encompass the Scott County Sheriff’s Office along with five rural fire departments and four rural police departments.

Smith added there is also a dispatch at the Chaffee Police Department that answers police calls but not 911 and another at the Miner Police Department which handles police and fire calls but not 911. They will remain.

The Scott County Commission approved and signed the agreement on Sept. 24. Scott County Presiding Commissioner Danny Tetley was at the meeting and said the decision was a personal one to him.

Tetley said his wife was involved in a car accident days before he took office, and when he called the Scott County 911 service, there was no answer because the lone dispatcher was on another call about the accident.

While additional dispatchers have been hired in Scott County, Tetley said it made sense to move it to Sikeston with the nice facility at DPS along with the state pushing for not just county consolidation but multi-county consolidation.

“Our employees can come to Sikeston and have the same job with better pay and benefits than what we can provide,” Tetley said. “I was looking out for our county citizens and our county employees. It works out countywide and works into the plans for the future.”

Turnbow said there were two things they would not allow when going into an agreement: the service standard would not go down for Sikeston and that the funding for Sikeston citizens will remain the same.

Scott County voters approved a 911 tax two years ago that will pay for the extra cost to the City of Sikeston.

“Scott County will pay for everything that it costs to take that on,” Turnbow said. “Sometimes you just have to ask if it is the right thing to do and in my eyes it is.”

The timeline for full implementation is unknown due to the numerous vendors that will participate in the process.

This article was provided by the City of Sikeston.