New Police Dept. Farms Out Dispatching

The city of Hawthorne (Fla.) recently formed its own police department which, of course, also put it in the dispatching business. But the town of 1,500 decided to contract out its dispatching duties, picking between the town of High Springs for $50,000 a year or the Alachua County sheriff for $81,000 a year. Hawthorne officials picked High Springs, noting that the single dispatcher on-duty would probably have no problem handling the extra workload of its single officer on-duty most times. The town did have to install an antenna locally to improve radio reception, costing $7,000. High Springs may also assume dispatching for Newberry, which may form its own police department, and the existing police department in the town of Waldo.