South Portland city officials are contesting a draft report recommending Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough and South Portland operate a combined emergency-services dispatch office in Scarborough, though the report said Cape officials are the most resistant to consolidation.

The report, by RCC Consultants of Woodbridge, N.J., said the communities should have a combined 911 call center in South Portland, which gets more emergency calls than the other towns.

RCC also said Scarborough would make the most suitable location for dispatch operations because South Portland staff told RCC that the city’s dispatch systems and software need updating, which could increase the cost of consolidation, which the report estimates at about $400,000.

At present, Scarborough, Cape Elizabeth and South Portland all have their own 911 call centers, which are operated by people who also dispatch local police, fire and ambulance workers.

The report was commissioned by the three communities, with a $10,000 state grant, to determine what to do in response to a state mandate to reduce the number of 911 call centers. South Portland City Manager Jeff Jordan said he does not know if the final report, which he expects in a week or so, will favor South Portland over Scarborough.

Jordan said the report has many errors about software, radio systems and phone line equipment. He has asked RCC to re-evaluate South Portland’s equipment and fix the errors, which the firm said it will do.

Jordan said the City Council, which discussed the issue in September, has “strong reservations” about supporting consolidation if dispatch were moved out of the city.

He also said that “one could argue that the dispatch operation … ought to be in South Portland,” because the city is more “at risk” than Scarborough.

Scarborough Town Manager Ron Owens said he “thought the report was pretty accurate,” in representing Scarborough’s status.

Cape Elizabeth Town Manager Mike McGovern called the report useless. “The report is not worth much ink, including the ink that was used to print the draft,” he said. The report indicates Cape Elizabeth officials are most resistant to consolidation. In 2004, the Cape Town Council voted not to consolidate with South Portland.

The draft provided statistical data about “abandoned calls, ” 911 calls that come in but are not answered by an operator. Town officials and RCC spokesman Marc Bono say the data for Cape Elizabeth was inaccurate because they did not factor in Cape’s system’s self-test procedure, in which the system calls itself and then hangs up.

Cumberland Town Manager William Shane was disappointed with a report his community received from RCC on dispatch consolidation last year. “The report contained many errors, some very basic, which led to speculation on how credible the findings were,” he wrote in an e-mail message.

The draft report has two options. One would have the three communities moving their dispatch offices to a single location, which would likely require layoffs. The second would be to keep dispatch in each community, and just reroute 911 calls to a central location.

Which is the most service-efficient option for the communities is debatable, but for Cape Elizabeth the second choice is the most cost-efficient. Cape Elizabeth Police Chief Neil Williams said “to give up our 911 calls would not be a problem; to give up our dispatch would be no money savings.”

Though McGovern was unwilling to “take a position on a report that is incomplete and inaccurate,” he did say that if consolidation did occur “there would be absolutely no cost savings” for Cape Elizabeth, which would instead incur costs.

Cape Elizabeth, unlike South Portland and Scarborough, has created its own computer system for handling 9-1-1 calls, which means to fully consolidate it would need to purchase an agreed-upon computer system.

For Cape Elizabeth to upgrade their software to make it compatible with Scarborough and South Portland, it would need to invest an estimated $80,000, said Williams. That is a rough estimate and could be more, said Williams.

The report said Cape would get “really no financial benefit” from consolidation, but could get better systems for less money if it went along. The town also might not have to pay a very large share if it did participate, because of the low demand from Cape residents.