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Putnam County’s part-time dispatchers will see a $2 pay increase beginning in December.
The Emergency Communications District Board approved the pay raise Thursday. The change will take part-time dispatcher pay from $12 to $14. Putnam County 911 Director Penny Foister said this decision should improve performance and save money.
“Hopefully, it will help us attract more people who are interested in being a dispatcher, who want to be a part-time dispatcher,” Foister said. “It will also help us, those part time dispatchers, they can fill the shifts when a full-time dispatcher needs to be off and it will be a financial, we will see financial benefits from it right there.”
Foister said during Thursday’s meeting that having someone with less seniority fill a shift can cost the department $18.80 an hour, compared to $33.85 for a senior full-time dispatcher. Foister said the plan is to request this pay increase be a part of the county’s budget in the next fiscal year.
“If we did get it approved at the next budget passing, for the next fiscal year that would be great,” Foister said. “As it stands right now, the ECD will be paying for that, we hope that sometime down the road that it would be passed and the county could take on half of that increase.”
Foister said there is not a staffing shortage at this time. The pay increase goes into effect on the pay period closest to December 1.
