Butler County now dispatching Monroe fire/EMS calls
May 19—The city of Monroe is "cutting out the middleman" by turning over fire and EMS dispatching to the Butler County Sheriff's Office, but the switch could cause delays if people try to use the direct number instead of 911.
The city posted the change on Facebook and warned there could be delays if people still try to dial the 7-digit instead of calling 911. Fire Chief Dave Leverage told the Journal-News there are businesses and residents who use the direct line instead of 911, so they asked them to stop to avoid delays.
He said if they call the 7-digit number now their dispatch will have to route calls to the county dispatchers.
"To keep people from doing that from now on, creating a delay, we wanted to make sure everyone knew to just dial 911," Leverage said. "That's the best way to get us out to your location the quickest."
Monroe is a secondary dispatch center that doesn't receive calls directly from the 911 system, the calls come into the sheriff where they were routed back to those cities for dispatching. The police calls will still go back to Monroe but the sheriff is going to handle fire dispatching now.
