Occhialini said the increase was especially noticeably over the months of September and October this year, and attributed the trend to an aging population in town.
More elderly people means more calls for assistance for people who have fallen or have a medical problem, he said.
“There’s no increase in fires, I’m happy about that,” he said. “But that type of (medical) call is going up as the population is getting older.”
The median age in Montville is about 43, and about 11 percent of the town's population is 70 or older, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Montville’s volunteer fire departments contract for their ambulance services, and the town’s dispatchers direct medical and fire calls to the fire departments and police calls to state police.
The dispatchers relay about 30 calls a month from elderly people who have fallen in their houses and are alone or live with an elderly person who can’t help them get up, Occhialini said.
Montville dispatchers fall under the town’s Fire Marshal office, which Occhialini heads. The town employs three full-time and nine part-time dispatchers who are scheduled so that at least one person is always on duty and two people work on weekday evenings.
Occhialini said the increase in the number of calls could serve as an argument for hiring more town dispatchers, but said he doesn’t plan to include a request for an additional employee in the proposed 2017 town budget.
Mayor Ronald McDaniel’s proposal for the current fiscal year town budget included money for a fourth full-time dispatcher to help handle fire and medical calls for the town. That request did not make it into the final version of the budget.
The authors of a report in favor of establishing an independent police department in Montville suggested last year that if it went ahead with the move, the town would need to hire five additional dispatchers to handle police calls at a salary of about $50,000 a year.
The proposal to establish an independent department and leave the State Police resident trooper program passed the Town Council in January, but was overturned in a public referendum by town voters three months later.
The dispatcher’s union is now in discussion with town officials to complete the four-year renegotiation of their contract, and Occhialini said he doesn’t know what the outcome will be.
In the meantime, he said, the dispatchers and fire department volunteers and emergency personnel will continue to serve anyone who calls them for help.
“We’re there, we (have to) help the people,” he said.
m.shanahan@theday.com
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