DURHAM

Town officials are weighing the possibility of shifting dispatch services from Androscoggin County Sheriff ’s Office across the river to Lisbon Emergency.

Durham Fire Chief William St. Michel is waiting on final numbers from Lisbon before he makes an official recommendation to the Board of Selectmen, but he said preliminary estimates are that the town would save about $1,200 per year.

“There certainly would be a savings, but that’s not the primary reason — and it should not be the primary reason — for changing to dispatch through Lisbon,” St. Michel said. “The quality and reliability of service should remain the same if not better, and that’s why the town is considering the change.”

Depending on whether someone calls 911 from a landline or which wireless signal tower relays calls made on mobile phones, all calls go either to the sheriff or state police, because they are public safety answering points, or PSAPs.

That wouldn’t change.

The difference will be in the management of fire trucks and ambulances after the initial call.

Right now, county emergency dispatchers manage the response to a call; if Lisbon Emergency takes over, town dispatchers manage which trucks and people respond to a call from its switchboard behind Town Hall on outer Lisbon Street.

When that happens, quality and reliability of communication should improve because with Lisbon, the dispatch process would be entirely through VHF, or very high frequency, two-way radio signal. Currently, communication between the Androscoggin County Sheriff ’s Office and the town is by radio-telephone loop, necessary because of topography and interference from other antenna arrays on the roof of the town’s fire station.

But it’s a signal conversion that sometimes can turn squirrelly, depending on weather, location of transmitters and receivers, and glitches.

Going all-VHF “is just one less link in the chain” of things that can go wrong in situations which already are stressful enough, St. Michel said.

Changing to Lisbon also would make Durham’s annual municipal budgeting process more stable, since the cost of the contract would be based on the town’s population and rate of growth rather than the sheriff ’s policy of billing on a straight hourly rate per call.

Durham’s contract with the sheriff ’s office expires on Dec. 31; a new contract with Lisbon would take effect on Jan. 1.

The fire chief expects to have final numbers in time for the next Board of Selectmen’s meeting Oct. 23.

jtleonard@timesrecord.com