Barrie’s fire dispatch services could become a kind of cash cow.
City council gave approval Monday to add more communications staff so that more dispatch contracts can be signed with other municipalities — if these costs can be recovered and the new deals create a sustainable revenue source.
“We already have the capacity for our emergency communications. While we don’t have tangible numbers yet, this is significant. This will generate hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of dollars for the City of Barrie,” said Coun. Sergio Morales. “And while there is likely to be a small increase in costs, in terms of just some staff hours, this is making the City of Barrie real money.”
Barrie Fire and Emergency Service (BFES) has provided fire dispatch services to other municipalities since 1984. The BFES communications branch has 19 municipal customers and is the predominant fire dispatch centre in Simcoe County and the District of Muskoka.
BFES has received multiple inquiries from other fire services regarding the potential of it providing fire dispatch services. Its radio infrastructure and computer aided dispatch systems are capable of supporting more customers.
BFES is also currently in the planning stages to secure a project manager and to initiate the buying process to upgrade its legacy 911 system to the Next Generation 911 system to meet legislative requirements.
In his staff report, Fire Chief Cory Mainprize says BFES facilities, infrastructure, its radio system and department experience, supported by information technology staff, are well prepared to increase the number of service contracts currently in place.
Current service contracts provide a significant and sustainable revenue source for the city, and adding additional customers will increase revenue opportunities using incumbent equipment and facilities.
But more staff are needed to increase the number of service contracts.
Morales said this could also be another way to increase cost recovery for city services.
“We’ve spoken about innovative ways that staff have generated revenue, such as billboards, such as storing empty tanks on our railways,” he said. “We’ve not talking 10 or 20 thousand dollars, we’re talking in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for those two projects, especially the tanks (on Barrie Collingwood Railway lines).”
The motion council approved Monday grants authority to amend the number of approved complement positions, to provide the resources required to execute future fire dispatch service agreements, where it can be demonstrated to the satisfaction of the fire chief, the director of finance, and the general manager of community and corporate services, that any additional staff complement costs will be recovered, and the new service contract will create a sustainable revenue source.
Financial implications will be dependant on the number and size of any new service contracts.
