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MARIETTA — A feasibility study on the possibility of doing a combined Washington County 911 system will be the focus of a public hearing Tuesday in Marietta.

The Ohio Auditor of State’s office recently released a report, “Washington County 911 Dispatch Feasibility Study June 2025” for the City of Belpre, the City of Marietta and Washington County.

A public hearing will be held 5-7 p.m. Tuesday at the Armory in Marietta at 241 Front St., to discuss the report’s findings.

Officials in Washington County have been looking at the possibility of doing a combined 911 dispatch center for the entire county. They asked the State Auditor’s office to do the report which was done at no cost to the county.

“The Washington County Sheriff’s Office, City of Belpre, and City of Marietta came together to ask the Ohio Performance Team to review their operations to discover opportunities related to the consolidation of emergency dispatching services,” Ohio Auditor of State Keith Faber said in a letter as part of the report. “This study identifies two consolidation scenarios for the communities to consider.”

Currently, emergency calls are dispatched by the City of Belpre (for the Belpre Police Department, Belpre Volunteer Fire Department, Belpre EMS and Barlow Township Fire Department), the City of Marietta (which dispatches for the Marietta Police Department and the Marietta Fire Department) and the Washington County Sheriff’s Office which dispatches for the rest of the county (including Washington County Sheriff, New Matamoras Police Department, Beverly Police Department, Lowell Police, Department, and 17 Fire and EMS Departments across the county), according to the report.

The Washington County Sheriff’s Department received the majority of emergency/administrative calls at 51.3%, followed by the Marietta Police at 35.6% and Belpre with 13.1% of calls made in 2023, according to the report.

The report lists two possible scenarios where all emergency calls for the county could be answered under a consolidated system.

The first was to operate the consolidated dispatch operations from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.

“The current (the Washington County Sheriff’s Office) has adequate space to house the staffing and equipment for a county-wide consolidated dispatch operation,” the report said. “This location is already fitted for dispatch and would not require renovations.”

The second would create a virtual consolidation of technology with a single PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) being operated from two physical locations.

“Dispatch would be managed under one consolidated operation (management, technology, policies and procedures) but dispatchers would be in two physical locations, one in (the Washington County Sheriff’s Office) and the other in the City of Belpre,” the report said.

During discussions with the two cities, both expressed concern with covering administrative phone calls if dispatchers were no longer there to answer the administrative phone lines, the report added.

Belpre Mayor Susan Abdella said the whole idea of consolidating 911 services for the county is “still a work in progress right now.”

“We are not totally opposed to it, but right now there are things that have to be figured out before we would be comfortable with going to a centralized system,” she said.

There are some logistical things to work out, including how utility calls are handled overnight when the calls come to the dispatchers.

“That is a process we would have to redesign if we went to a centralized system,” Abdella said. “The other thing is our officers here, our dispatch does a lot of things for them as far as paperwork goes.

“There are so many unknowns as far as operational processes. People would always be making trips up and down the road to the county central dispatch office.”

The whole business plan has not been worked out yet on a number of concerns.

“It hasn’t been completed yet to a point we are at 100% yet,” Abdella said. “We are not opposed to evaluating, but we just have some things we have to figure out.”

Marietta Mayor Josh Schlicher said the city has been working with the county for several years on a combined 911 center. Currently, they are all still operating the three PSAPs, he said.

“Going forward if the opportunity presents itself for a more efficient system and if the funding is available and everything lines up we will consider going to a centralized 911 system,” he said.

He talked about changes made in the current system which included updated systems that allows the three zones to pick up calls that originate within their areas. He also highlighted better communications with other agencies.

Schlicher said there may come a day when the costs will need them to combine 911 services into a centralized location as equipment at the three agencies will eventually need to be updated.

“There are still a lot of things that would need to be worked out,” he said.

Washington County Sheriff Mark Warden said one of the biggest issues dealing with a centralized 911 system is how it will be paid for. County officials have been working on it.

Warden said his biggest concern with the study is he felt it underestimated the number of dispatchers needed to operate a centralized 911 system for the county.

“The dispatchers (in all three PACPs) are not just call takers, they work a call all the way to the end,” Warden said of calls that can take some time to work through. “The dispatcher is tied up for that time frame.

“I think it is going to take more manpower to run a 911 center for the county and again how will it get paid for?”

Belpre, Marietta and Washington County officials are working on coming up with a business plan on what would be in the center and how it would be funded, Warden said.

“We are in a good place now,” Warden said. “Could it be better? Probably down the road.

“For right now, we are where we need to be, because of the costs associated with a new center.”

Brett Dunlap can be reached at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com.