MESA Chief Wants More Funds To Hire More Dispatchers For Marion County
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INDIANAPOLIS — The amount of time it takes dispatchers to respond to your 911 could mean the difference between life and death. That point was made clear to Indianapolis City-County Councilors last night as the head of Marion County’s dispatchers made their case for more funding in the next city budget.
The Marion County-Indianapolis Metropolitan Emergency Services Agency (MESA) was formed in 2022 to consolidate dispatchers between the county and the city of Indianapolis. It’s been a tough go for the agency to remain properly staffed in order to answer 911 calls.
Simply being able to provide that service is the basis of their budget, says MESA Chief Tom Sellas.
“We always look at how do we provide the service that’s needed. That’s how we build our budget,” Sellas said Wednesday to a City-County Council committee reviewing the 2025 budget. “This is the service that’s needed. This is what we present to you in order for us to be able to do our job that’s required of us.”
He said that about 20% of his agency’s jobs are open and that much of the slack is having to be picked up by the rest of his staff. This is resulting in slower response times than what he says is ideal.
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“It’s fluctuating now between 18 seconds and 24 seconds,” Sellas said. “For August, it’s at 24 seconds. I will tell you when MESA was first put together in 2022, we were at 34 seconds. And it’s bad and we’re still not where we need to be, where we want to be. We want to be at 10 seconds or less.”
The simple fix to this is to hire more dispatchers. Sellas said he needs to hire 35 more dispatchers.
Sellas wants $30 million, up from $28 million in 2024, so that he can have more funds available to offer competitive starting salaries. Sellas says the starting annual pay for a Marion County dispatcher will be $54,000 in 2025.
