JASPER, Tenn. – When city leaders in Jasper learned last month their annual fee to Marion County’s central dispatch was going up $8,000, they had questions – a lot of them.
So Marion 911 Director Jerry Don Case addressed concerns at the May meeting of the Jasper Board of Mayor and Aldermen,
Case, who is the only Marion 911 employee, said that organization and the county dispatching service are “two totally separate things,” even though they are housed in the same building.
The dispatch service for which the fee increase was mandated is controlled by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, he said, and is not a part of 911’s budget.
Though Case doesn’t directly supervise county dispatchers, he and Dispatching Director Jerry Hutchins do fill in for each other occasionally when one of them is absent, he said.