By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Township officials might replace the Lawrence Township Police Department’s 911 dispatchers with a private company to handle the service, but township residents’ safety will not be jeopardized by the outsourcing.
That’s the message delivered by Police Chief Daniel Posluszny and Municipal Manager Richard Krawczun. The Police Department’s seven dispatchers are municipal employees, and they are among the latest batch of municipal employees who might be laid off for budgetary reasons.
Mr. Krawczun is preparing bid specifications for the dispatching services through competitive contracting. This means the contract would be awarded to the most qualified but not necessarily the cheapest bidder.
Chief Posluszny and Mr. Krawczun said that if Township Council awards a contract to a private company, the dispatchers would not be municipal employees although they would still be responsible to the township.
”No one should be under the impression that the municipal or police department administration is looking to reorganize the (police dispatching) service in a fashion that is any less than what we have now,” Mr. Krawczun said, adding that “we are not going to jeopardize the level of service, response and protection of the citizens.”
”Current dispatchers would be able to apply (to work for the vendor). I am unable to say if the vendors already have their own people, but whoever it is, we will seek assurances that they have all the certification and training to be 911 dispatchers,” Mr. Krawczun said.
Chief Posluszny said Lawrence Township requires prospective 911 dispatchers to undergo a psychological examination that is administered by a licensed psychologist. This is to ensure that an applicant would be able to handle the stress and the type of information that they can access, such as criminal histories and personal information, he said.
What happens when a 911 call is received by the Lawrence Township Police Department dispatcher?
The dispatcher asks questions to find out the nature of the emergency, the caller’s location and related information. If it is a matter for the police, then the dispatcher handles the call.
But if the call is about a fire or a medical emergency, it is handed off to Mercer County Central Communications for a fire and medical emergencies are handed off to Lifecom EMS, which dispatches ambulances and emergency medical technicians throughout Mercer County.
Chief Posluszny said it “makes more sense” for Mercer County to handle fire-related calls, in case there is a need to call for mutual aid from a neighboring fire department. Referring all fire calls to that agency allows Police Department dispatchers to focus on law enforcement matters.
The same principle applies to medical calls, Chief Posluszny said. He pointed to an incident in which an ambulance crew from one municipality, which was on its way home from a Trenton hospital, was diverted to Lawrence to handle a call because none of the Lawrence crews were available.
”It is impossible for us to coordinate large-scale (emergencies),” he said. “We can’t coordinate medical emergency and fire emergency major events. That is not our main function. We are the first point of contact for a 911 call.”
The police chief said the Police Department made the switch about 10 years ago to send fire and medical emergency calls to Mercer County Central Communications and Lifecom EMS. Handing off the call from the Police Department dispatcher to the other dispatchers is “seamless” for the caller, he added.
A good dispatcher is able to work under stressful conditions, answering several telephone calls and communicating with police officers in the field all at the same time, Chief Posluszny said. He added that he did not think that the relationship between the dispatchers and the police officers is “critical or makes that much difference.”
”My motto is, when we get a 911 call, we get the help to where it needs to go,” the police chief said.

