Stanislaus County sheriff in dispute with board over dispatch services. What the law says
Stanislaus County Sheriff Jeff Dirkse has a degree of independence in his dispute with the county Board of Supervisors regarding 911 dispatch services.
According to the California State Association of Counties, county sheriffs enforce criminal laws under the supervision of the state attorney general. The attorney general’s oversight also extends to county district attorney prosecution of criminal offenders.
Dirkse’s proposal for a joint 911 dispatch center with Ceres police will require the Board of Supervisors’ approval. That’s because the board is responsible for allocating funding and staff to the various county departments, including the Sheriff’s Office. (Court opinions have stated that chaos would ensue if county departments determined their own spending.)
According to CSAC, the sheriff is obligated to follow the board’s budget guidelines. County boards also are expected to ensure county officers, including the sheriff, faithfully perform their duties.
On the other hand, the county board is not allowed to interfere with the investigative and prosecutory functions of the sheriff and district attorney, who are subject to state Attorney General’s Office oversight.
County leaders have disagreed with Dirkse’s plan for a dispatch center with Ceres and haven’t given up on the Stanislaus Regional 911 joint powers authority, which has provided 911 dispatch services for Modesto, the Sheriff’s Department and fire districts since 1999.
By many accounts, the JPA has experienced serious problems over the past 25 years.
Dirkse says he began talking with Oracle about development of a dispatch system in 2021 after Modesto served notice it would leave the Stanislaus Regional JPA. With the supposed departure of one of the two main partners, Dirkse understood the Sheriff’s Department would need a new state-of-the-art computer-assisted dispatch (CAD) system.
Oracle and the Sheriff’s Office spent hundreds of hours developing a new dispatch system. County leaders approved general terms and conditions of an agreement with Oracle in May 2023, enabling it to begin live testing. But the system still required approval from the Stanislaus Regional 911 board.
Under the sheriff’s proposal, the Oracle system would be installed in an expanded Ceres dispatch center. Its capabilities include dispatch, a records management system and jail management system to meet the needs of the Sheriff’s Department.
In the meantime, officials involved with SR-911 patched things up, keeping Modesto in the JPA. In June 2024, the SR-911 governing board approved a CAD system sold by CentralSquare to replace the agency’s outdated dispatch technology. The Oracle system also was considered but not selected.
Modesto Councilmember Nick Bavaro, a Stanislaus Regional 911 board member, said he supported the CentralSquare CAD because it was recommended by Modesto’s police and fire chiefs and front-line personnel in the police officers union and firefighters union. Plans are to fully implement the Central Square system in September.
A federal grant covered the $2.98 million cost of the new CAD.
“The Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department has to make their own decisions,” Bavaro said. “The sheriff has made the decision to go with Oracle and the Board of Supervisors will decide if they approve the budget for that.”
Dirkse said he feels the Board of Supervisors is trying to force him into an inferior dispatch system that won’t meet the records and jail management needs of his department. Plus, the agreement with Oracle would give the department free use of the system for five years.
Dirkse contends the board is overstepping its boundary and encroaching on his law enforcement duties and investigative authority, because dispatch centers are integral to law enforcement work.
“The board cannot interfere with the independent and statutorily designated investigative functions of the sheriff,” Dirkse wrote in a Nov. 8 request for the board to pay for an outside attorney to represent him in his dispute with county leadership.
“The sheriff is an elected official, who acts on behalf of both the state of California and the sheriff’s county in executing his duties,” his letter stated, citing the California Constitution.
At its Dec. 10 meeting, the board turned down Dirkse’s request for an outside attorney. During the meeting, County Counsel Thomas Boze outlined the responsibilities of the board and sheriff. In Boze’s opinion, Dirkse’s contention of board interference under the circumstances would not prevail in a court case.
Dirkse was asked Friday what he will do if the Board of Supervisors does not approve the dispatch agreement with Ceres and use of the Oracle system. “We will cross that bridge when the time comes,” Dirkse said.
Friday, Dirkse also was asked why sheriff’s detectives served a search warrant at Stanislaus Regional 911 on Jan. 24. Dirkse confirmed the search warrant was served but would not comment further, saying it’s an ongoing investigation.
Board asks for details of a Ceres agreement
On Jan. 28, the Board of Supervisors, in a 3-2 vote, authorized the sheriff to negotiate a dispatch service agreement with Ceres and bring it back for board consideration and a decision. It was not a guarantee the board will give approval. Supervisors may see the vetted cost numbers and terms of an agreement in April.
On Tuesday, a board discussion of potential call transfer delays will continue.
With the current 911 system, the participating communities in SR-911 have direct access to police and fire emergency service without a call transfer. A transfer is necessary for ambulance response. A county staff report says one or two transfer calls will be introduced in the system if the Sheriff’s Department leaves the JPA.
For an emergency medical service incident, the call would be answered by the Ceres dispatch center and then transferred to SR-911 for fire dispatch and then to ambulance dispatch, the report says. The change would impact unincorporated areas and the Sheriff Department’s contract cities of Riverbank, Hughson, Patterson and Waterford.
The county staff report says the transfers would increase emergency response times. The California Office of Emergency Services operations manual stresses that effort should be made to minimize the number of 911 call transfers.
Dirkse said CAD-to-CAD links can streamline the call processing by transmitting information between the agencies. The staff report says the links do not eliminate call transfers, however. Each dispatch agency still must handle call intake and coordinate response, verifying the incident location, a call-back number and the type of emergency, the report says.
The county unincorporated area had 1,344 fire and 14,073 EMS calls in 2024. Riverbank had 2,373 of those calls (328 fire, 2045 EMS); Patterson had 2,293 (383 fire, 1910 EMS); Waterford had 1,027 (135 fire, 892 EMS); and Hughson had 987 (116 fire, 871 EMS).
As the county considers a dispatch agreement between Ceres and the Sheriff’s Department, it has not made arrangements for the county fire agency and Probation Department to connect with the CentralSquare system, which is scheduled for implementation in September.
County Fire and Probation have chosen to participate in the JPA’s CentralSquare system. The county has missed deadlines for getting discounts for licensing costs.
If the county does not enter an agreement with CentralSquare by Feb. 19, it may incur additional cost of configuration for the participating county agencies.
The Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors will meet at 9 a.m. Tuesday in the basement chambers of Tenth Street Place, 1010 10th St., Modesto.
