Commissioners in Schuylkill and Northumberland counties have signed an agreement to begin exploring 9-1-1 services.
On Wednesday, Schuylkill County Commissioners unanimously approved an action to get that process started here. The day prior, according to a report from The Shenandoah Sentinel, Commissioners in Northumberland County did the same.
“In a nutshell, this is designed to coordinate and consolidate emergency response and is designed to create efficiency and cost savings for both counties,” Schuylkill County Solicitor Paul Datte explained Wednesday.
Schuylkill County Commissioners Chairman Larry Padora said that the board’s been working on this agreement since the beginning of the year. He says, when an agreement on shared services is finalized in the future, it’ll result in increased services for both counties.
Padora also said if the counties can pull off a final agreement, it could generate more funding for 9-1-1 services for both Schuylkill and Northumberland counties. When the Commissioners here approved the final budget for 2025 – which featured a 3.25-mill property tax increase – a change in the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) 9-1-1 funding formula left County government needing to invest more money from the General Fund than usual for it.
Northumberland’s 9-1-1 budget is considerably smaller than Schuylkill’s, Padora said. For 2025, Schuylkill County has a $6.4 million budget for 9-1-1. In Northumberland County, it’s just $1.7 million.
Padora said a consolidation plan would equate to about $2.4 million in savings for Schuylkill County and about $700,000 for Northumberland. The savings, he said, are equal to the amount of money that doesn’t have to come from a county’s General Fund budget because of increased PEMA funding.
“It’s a massive benefit. It just came about,” Padora said. “Northumberland County has some difficulties with their stuff. We got short-changed on funding last year. You have duplication of services between counties and municipalities everywhere. You have to think outside the box.”
Commissioner Boots Hetherington said he learned of a recommendation for counties with less than 300,000 residents to combine 9-1-1 services with other counties at a County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania conference and informed Padora of it. He commended Padora on the work he did in getting to Wednesday’s start toward that.
Inter-municipal agreements and consolidating services are key to saving money and generating more revenue, Commissioner Gary Hess said.
Padora believes Schuylkill and Northumberland counties are getting ahead of what he expects to be a PEMA mandate to consolidate 9-1-1 services.
Though nothing regarding shared 9-1-1 services is close to finalized at this point, Padora tells The Canary that if and when a deal is finally closed – possibly by the end of 2025 – Northumberland’s 9-1-1 operations would be handled in Schuylkill County. It would mean, he said, having about one additional dispatcher on duty.
Padora also said that no 9-1-1 dispatchers in Schuylkill County will lose their job under a consolidation plan. (UPDATE: Following publication of this article, Padora added that no Northumberland County dispatchers are expected to lose their jobs if a shared 9-1-1 services agreement is reached. Our article was originally written from the perspective of Schuylkill County readers.)
While the agreement right now is to work toward consolidating 9-1-1 services between Schuylkill and Northumberland counties, Padora has eyes on expanding that even further. Once more than 300,000 people are served by a single 9-1-1 operations center, more funding from PEMA is available, he said.
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