SCARBOROUGH – Under a new agreement with the town of Old Orchard Beach, Scarborough will start providing public safety dispatching services to the beachside community beginning Feb. 1, 2015.

The contract, which was unanimously approved by the Old Orchard Beach Town Council on Aug. 5 and which the Scarborough Town Council is expected to sign this week, is for a three-year period.

Louise Reid, the assistant town manager in Old Orchard Beach, said this week that the contract is a “better option” for the town in terms of having local dispatchers who are familiar with the community.

For the past several years Old Orchard Beach has contracted with the Sanford Regional Communications Center to answer incoming 911 calls and send out the appropriate first responders.

But Reid said the town prefers working with Scarborough because “it’s a closer neighbor and their dispatchers know our streets and are more familiar with Old Orchard Beach.”

The two communities began discussing the change in dispatching services this spring and are now at the point of formalizing the agreement.

Under the contract, Scarborough will receive $305,977 for the period of Feb. 1 through June 30, 2015. The following fiscal year the town of Old Orchard Beach would pay $315,156 for dispatching services. In 2017 the cost would go up to $324,611 and for the final year of the contract the cost would be $334,349.

Prior to the Aug. 20 Scarborough Town Council meeting, which was held after the Current’s deadline, Town Manager Tom Hall said the dispatching agreement is a good thing for Scarborough for a number of reasons.

One is that as a growing community the calls for service are continually increasing, but Scarborough now has the opportunity to increase its dispatching staff without having the cost fall on local taxpayers.

“This (dispatching contract) allows us to increase staffing with the cost 100 percent covered by Old Orchard Beach,” Hall said. “This should significantly delay the need to increase staffing at local cost.”

In addition, he said, Old Orchard Beach is also carrying 100 percent of the cost to make the infrastructure improvements needed to provide that town with public safety dispatching services.

In terms of the benefit to Old Orchard Beach, Hall said the town would “be getting top-notch service from a neighboring community who interacts with them on a regular basis through our longstanding mutual aid agreements for fire, police and (paramedic) services.”

He added, “Our dispatchers know their community and our first responders routinely interact with their responders at calls in each (town) on a regular basis.”

Both Hall and Reid said the negotiations between Scarborough and Old Orchard Beach were cordial and went well. Hall said part of the reason the contract discussions were so successful is that “both sides have a vested interest in coming up with a mutually beneficial agreement that will serve us both well into the future.”

In terms of the three new dispatchers Scarborough must hire to handle the increased call volume, Hall said the plan is to complete the hiring process this fall so that the additional staff will be trained and ready to go on Feb. 1.

He also said the town would “certainly consider any candidates from the Sanford (center) who have experience dispatching for Old Orchard Beach.”