Budget hike could get 911 calls answered quicker, leader says
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Marion County-Indianapolis Metropolitan Emergency Services Agency, also known by the acronym MESA, employs 911 dispatchers.
Chief Tom Sellas says about 20% of its dispatcher positions are open, and keeping employees is tough when the agency doesn’t have the funding for competitive pay.
MESA has asked for an increase of just under $2 million in the 2025 budget over 2024’s. The total requested is just under $30 million. The 2024 budget for the agency came in at just under $28 million.
“We always look at how do we provide the service that’s needed. That’s how we build our budget,” Sellas said Wednesday to a City-County Council committee reviewing the 2025 budget. “This is the service that’s needed. This is what we present to you in order for us to be able to do our job that’s required of us.”
Sellas said at the budget hearing that response times have dropped because the agency does not have enough employees to answer emergency calls faster.
“It’s fluctuating now between 18 seconds and 24 seconds,” Sellas said at the budget hearing. “For August, it’s at 24 seconds. I will tell you when MESA was first put together in 2022, we were at 34 seconds. And it’s bad and we’re still not where we need to be, where we want to be. We want to be at 10 seconds or less.”
“As we get more people in, that’s what will help us lower our numbers,” Sellas said in a one-on-one interview with News 8.
Sellas said that, without a bigger budget, filling open dispatch positions will be tough. The agency is down 35 people and, to be fully staffed, Sellas would need a total of about 175 dispatchers.
“We’ve kind of started increasing toward that where we’re getting a steady influx of new personnel, but the job as a telecommunicator is very difficult.”
Sellas says the starting annual pay for a Marion County dispatcher will be $54,000 in 2025.
MESA dispatchers recently unionized. Sellas says the union will work on a collective-bargaining agreement for 2026.