[R]UTLAND — Officials in Derby and Rutland Town are seeking ways to fund their emergency call centers after hearing that keeping the facilities open would cost them $1.1 million each.

The Department of Public Safety released a report on Wednesday saying that the state would need to fund 13 union workers, plus benefits and operations, in order to keep a single public safety answering point (PSAP) running.

The Shumlin administration had planned in January to consolidate PSAPs in Derby and Rutland Town into facilities in Williston and Rockingham, respectively, and cut 14 unionized positions. The plan estimated $1.7 million in savings, including about $282,000 in operational costs from maintaining the two buildings.

In response to a public outcry, the Legislature decided to take $425,000 from the state’s universal service fee on phone bills and direct the Vermont State Police to keep the Derby and Rutland Town call centers open through Sept. 15 while locals took time to adjust.

Lawmakers directed Keith Flynn, the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, to submit a report by June 1 on how much it would cost to keep the PSAPs open. According to the report released Wednesday, that number is about $1.1 million for personnel, assuming a union worker costs $85,000 when benefits are included. The state says it would need another $91,148 for operations and equipment.

Donald Patch, chief of staff for the Vermont State Police, said Thursday that the new information has not changed the state’s plans to consolidate public safety answering points. The Vermont State Police and Enhanced 911 Board will still take all relevant equipment out of the two PSAPs as they had planned in January, he said.

The state police will cut 14 positions, according to Patch, and the exact number of layoffs will depend on which positions are already empty in September. The number of full-time positions will go from 71 to 57, as previously planned.

Patch has scheduled meetings this month, when he will work with ad hoc committees in Rutland County and the Northeast Kingdom to figure out what will happen to local dispatching services after Sept. 15.

“We’re starting to talk more with the local entities to find out what direction they’re moving in,” Patch said. “If they hope to come up with their own dispatching, I hope that they’ve been looking at their options long before now.”

If the community groups don’t want to receive the free, consolidated services from the state, they have two options to maintain local control: provide municipal dispatch services from the state police property, or hire a company to provide dispatch services privately.

A third option would be to convince the Vermont State Police to keep some state employees as dispatchers — who would coordinate getting first responders to the scene of an emergency but not answer 911 calls. In that case, the towns would still need to figure out how to impose fees or implement a local tax to pay the state.

Rep. Mike Marcotte, R-Coventry, who sits on the Coventry Selectboard, said Thursday he has been working with local sheriffs and other first responders and plans to meet with Patch on June 23.

Marcotte said stakeholders in the Derby and Newport area put some “preliminary numbers” together and are seriously discussing providing county dispatch without using the state police.

“It’s more favorable for us to go with a county dispatching service instead of the state police,” Marcotte said. “We’d have more local control on it than we would with the state police. The county dispatching could offer more services than the state police could.”

Rep. Butch Shaw, R-Florence, who volunteers for the Pittsford Fire Department, said he is working with five other people on a steering committee in Rutland County. They will meet with Patch on June 25.

“It looks like they’ve made a choice, the [Shumlin] administration’s made a choice just to close down Rutland and Derby, and we were convinced that was going to happen as the (legislative) session wore on,” Shaw said. “Now that we have some hard numbers, we can decide what we’re going to do.”

Chief Christopher Brickell of the Brandon Police Department, sits on that committee and said he’s “not leaning in any one particular way.”

Shaw said he will work with the group to come up with questions for Patch.