Terrell County considers 911 consolidation with Early County

DAWSON – Terrell County leaders are in talks with Early County about a potential consolidation of the county’s 911 system. 

Terrell County Chairman Wilbur Gamble brought up the potential change during the Oct. 7 County Commission meeting, and he said some updates might be provided during Tuesday’s meeting. However, both Terrell and Early are in the early stages of discussion. 

Currently, Terrell County operates its own 911 system, which employs six people, including a new 911 director, Kayla Wright, who took over the position in late July. This department costs the county about $30,000 per month to operate, and it will soon be in need of an equipment upgrade that Gamble said could cost close to $500,000. 

However, Gamble said consolidating its 911 system may help save money. Early County recently upgraded its 911 system and is in talks with several counties about potential partnerships.

“We’re in the very very early preliminary stages,” Early County Commission Chairman Hank Jester said. “But, we’d like to help five or six counties in the southwest Georgia area to ease their cost.” 

Early County’s new 911 system would allow it to take on 911 calls and dispatch services for several counties.

“It’s possible, but not a certainty quite yet, that they can actually provide the service cheaper than what we’re paying each month to run our own service,” Gamble said. “If that’s the case, we’d save money monthly. And we would not have to come up with a half-million dollars to upgrade.”

However, Gamble said there are some uncertainties. 

“We’re looking at whether they can give us the same type of response time,” he said. “Now, it shouldn’t really have much effect whether you’re sitting in Early County when you get the call or sitting in the office in Dawson. The call comes in, it tells you where it’s at, and they dispatch it. But we’re still looking at those things.”

This consolidation would come just months after Terrell County voted to award a multiyear contract to AmeriPro Health, a nationally accredited health care company, to provide emergency ambulance services in the county. This switch meant changing from a government-run to a private EMS provider. 

The consolidation would also mean loss of jobs for those employed by Terrell County’s 911 department. 

“We would try to offer them something if something were available, but in all likelihood, there would be people having to find employment elsewhere,” Gamble said.

Terrell’s high 911 costs are from employee salaries, equipment costs and telephone services. 

Georgia has the second-largest number of counties of any state in the U.S., and Gamble said consolidation of these counties is talked about a lot in the state legislature. 

“We’ve got 159 counties … and the reality is you have a lot of duplicate services for these counties, and if there were not so many of them it would be cheaper,” he said. “We’re never going to be able to consolidate the counties themselves, but we might be able to consolidate some services so that you don’t have that overlap and one of the places that’s happened a good bit is with 911.”

Gamble said there wouldn’t be much of an update during the November county meeting, and Jester said Early County’s 911 switch is still recent, and it’s too early to share concrete plans. 

“We are going to at least consider it if it’s enough money savings to make sense, and if we’re sure we can get good service if we switch,” he said.