SPOKANE COUNTY, Wash. Residents near the Grove Road Fire were advised they could return to their homes as the evacuation order was downgraded on Tuesday night.
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Until now, most 911 calls in Spokane were handled by SREC. But that agency, and many fire districts are critically short staffed. To make sure calls are answered, Spokane Police dispatchers are taking on extra responsibilities.
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Credit Courtesy Spokane County
A bill that would force Spokane County to negotiate with the city of Spokane on how emergency communications are funded has now passed both chambers of the Washington legislature.
The bill follows a longstanding conflict between Spokane County and the City of Spokane over which government oversees the region’s 9-1-1 dispatch response.
That system is funded through a 2017 sales tax which created an entity called the Spokane Regional Emergency Communications. That group was meant to consolidate all 9-1-1 dispatchers under one agency.
When it was passed the county was just under the 500,000-population threshold needed to meet the requirement of negotiating with cities in its jurisdiction on how that money should be spent. The bill, which is sponsored by Spokane Democrat Marcus Riccelli, would require counties that now meet that threshold to negotiate with cities with a population of under 50,000