The Warren County Emergency Communications Center has contracted with Navigate Building Solutions and will work with JEMA Architecture for the expansion of its 911 dispatch center. 

That expansion is part of the improvements that will be funded by the quarter-cent sales tax increase approved by voters in the April election. 

The sales tax increase was the first time the agency had requested additional funding since its inception in 1994. 

That increase will take effect on Oct. 1, and the dispatch center will see an increase in funding in their November revenues, as it receives payments monthly from the sales tax. 

911 Dispatch Center Administrator Amy Leach said they are working with contractors to determine schedules and hope to break ground on the project in the spring of 2026 with a completion date in the fall of 2027. 

The expansion of the building is only a part of the improvements that will be funded by the sales tax increase as the dispatch center plans to make upgrades to its radio system and hire additional dispatchers as well. 

The project is set to cost roughly $7.5 million, according to Leach, funded by bonds issued earlier this year. Of those funds, $7 million will be dedicated to construction, with an additional $560,000 for the radio expansion. 

Leach said they plan to hire additional staff solely with additional funds from the sales tax increase. 

The need for expansion was spurred by population growth in the county as Leach said call volumes have increased by 115% since 2008 and the county’s population has grown by 72% since 1995. 

They need additional dispatchers to handle the call volume, who in turn, need more space to work. The radio improvements will allow dispatchers to operate additional channels and isolate larger incidents and individual first responder agencies to their own channels. 

Leach said they are planning to expand the dispatch center out into the parking lot and extend the parking lot along the entrance road. 

She was optimistic they would be able to make improvements to the radio system as construction on the expansion was underway but said she was waiting on confirmation from contractors. 

“We’ll bring everybody on to say, when can we do what?” said Leach. “If we can do the radio expansion while this is going on, and it won’t disrupt services, we’ll do it at the same time. So we’re just waiting for that initial meeting to find out where everybody is.”

She said they hope to make both improvements concurrently to avoid any increases in construction costs. 

“We might even pre-buy some material that we need, just to kind of save costs on that too, and we don’t want tariffs to affect some of the pricing,” said Leach. 

Leach said maintaining services during construction is a priority for the dispatch center, and they tentatively plan to operate out of office trailers while it is under construction. 

“That was a big one, we have to continue operating,” said Leach. 

The dispatch center is also in the process of hiring additional dispatchers. Leach said they are currently training three new hires and have one more vacancy to fill to fully staff the center with 16 dispatchers. 

Once they have filled those vacancies they will look to hire four more, for 20 dispatchers. They plan to increase shifts from three dispatchers to four to account for increased call volumes. 

Leach credited the dispatch center’s board for their commitment to the project and said with their support, they hope to complete the improvements as quickly as possible. 

“They are just chugging along with us, there’s no stopping points,” said Leach. “They say every meeting, the community trusted us with a tax increase to move forward, and they want to keep that promise to the community and keep going with it.”