Hamilton’s negotiations to merge its 911 dispatch center with the county have nothing to do with a new law, it’s all about money, officials say.

A law passed by the state legislature last year calls for a gradual reduction of dispatch centers, with the final number bottoming out at three per county by 2018. If that isn’t accomplished, the county risks losing half its wireless 911 and Next Generation 911 state funding.

Hamilton’s dispatch center — which is the largest in Butler County and handles the highest volume of calls for service — bears the entire cost for its communications center, unlike other jurisdictions like West Chester Twp., where the fire department also chips in, Scrimizzi said.

With the city staring down a $5 million budget deficit going into 2014, Hamilton Police Chief Scott Scrimizzi said his department needs to do its part to par costs.

If a deal is reached with the county, however, there will be a human cost. Scrimizzi said he has been assured by both Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones and Butler County Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer that the city’s 20 dispatchers will be able to interview for county jobs, but it would not be cost effective to hire them all.

“I lose sleep over this stuff,” Scrimizzi said. “There are going to be some people out of their job. It’s unfortunately what I call the new normal. People say we’re having to do more with less and all that, the economy is going to get better. Quite frankly I don’t in the near future envision getting back to where we were.”

The police department has lost 22 sworn officers and 19 civilian employees since 2007.

The Hamilton JournalNews reached out to a group of Hamilton dispatchers, but they declined comment.

The nearly $900,000 Next Generation 911 system will allow the county to seamlessly dispatch calls where they need to go regardless of where the call was answered. It also has the capability to receive texts, pictures and video.

Technically, Butler County has a total of nine dispatch centers. Those nine centers responded to 232,843 911 calls — excluding Oxford — in 2012. However, the centers in Monroe, Trenton and Miami University are secondary dispatch centers and don’t receive calls directly from the 911 system and might not be counted toward the total, according to Stu Davis, the state’s chief information officer.

Captain Matt Franke, who serves as the county 911 coordinator, said the county receives about $850,000 from the 911 tariff and 40 percent of that money goes toward the operating fund and roughly 60 percent can be doled out to the other centers to reimburse approved expenses, like equipment replacement.

Franke said county dispatchers have started training on the new 911 system that might pass muster with the state regulations.

“It’s a virtual consolidation and that’s one of the things that has to be answered at the state level, when they talk consolidation, are they talking bricks and mortar or will a virtual consolidation also accomplish the same task,” he said. “It doesn’t change anything operationally, it’s all the back room equipment.”

He said the system can easily be updated to accept texts, pictures and videos when the time comes.

Davis said a virtual system might meet the law’s requirements.

Scrimizzi said the more dispatch centers that might move to the county system would obviously reduce the cost for all. But there are other huge costs — like switching records over to the county system — that might throw a wrench in the works. He said this is one more example of the state leaving the locals out to dry.

“It is so frustrating to me. Here they are telling you the you need to reduce and consolidate … but there is no funding mechanism to consolidate,” he said. “The governor goes around touting the fact he has balanced the budget, but quite frankly he’s done that on the backs of the cities and counties by eliminating local government funding. It’s crippled departments like us.”