Working Together and Also Apart
Mount Desert and Bar Harbor Temporarily Share Dispatchers and Split on HR
MOUNT DESERT—Bar Harbor and Mount Desert will no longer be sharing a human resource officer, according to Mount Desert Town Manager Durlin Lunt, but the towns will continue to share police resources, and—until September—some emergency service dispatchers.
On Tuesday, at the Mount Desert Selectboard meeting, Lunt said that the town’s human resource function has been shared with Bar Harbor.
That human resources person has been currently a remote position with Zach Harris. In 2023 Harris received 40% of his salary ($32,000 a year) from Mount Desert and 60% from Bar Harbor.
Harris relocated to Washington State and then Hawaii and has been completely remote since that time.
“Given the complexity and needs of the Town of Bar Harbor, and after giving this arrangement a try for the past six months, we found that this arrangement was not a fit for the town,” Bar Harbor Town Manager James Smith said. “Zach has been a great resource and a great employee; however, we need someone who is not in a time zone that is seven hours behind us.”
Lunt agreed about Harris’ skills.
Bar Harbor is currently advertising to fill the vacancy.
For Mount Desert to continue contractually with Harris the rate would likely be $130 an hour, but the town wouldn’t be paying for health insurance, retirement, or Social Security payments, Lunt said.
“It would be a wash,” Lunt said when it came to financials. He wanted to make sure that, even if this isn’t a long-term solution, that there isn’t a gap in the town’s necessary coverage for human resource needs.
SERGEANT COVERAGE
Police Chief David Kerns looked for a little help from the Mount Desert Select Board Monday. One form of assistance had to do with money and the second had to do with the towns’ emergency services dispatching schedule. There was no discussion on either item other than a quick thank-you from Chief Kerns.
“We couldn’t do it without everybody’s cooperation. The Mount Desert dispatchers have really stepped up,” Chief Kerns said.
Mount Desert and Bar Harbor have shared a police department since 2013.
Due to a billing snafu caused by changing personnel in the Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Police Departments, Chief Kerns was hoping to receive a mutual aid payment of $48,384.62 to cover the cost of police supervision from September 6, 2023, to June 30, 2024.
The towns share fiscal responsibility for some law enforcement positions and not others. When Mount Desert Sgt. Leigh Guildford retired in September 2023, Bar Harbor’s Tim Bland was put into Guildford’s supervisory role.
In a July 10 memo, Chief Kerns wrote, “Tim, a Bar Harbor employee, was our most senior patrol officer and was coming out of the patrol schedule at this time to resume responsibilities as the school resource officer. From an operational perspective, it made the most sense to utilize Officer Bland to fill the sergeant position temporarily.”
On January 4th, 2024, Captain Chris Wharf and Chief Kerns met with Lunt and Smith “to discuss our future vision of law enforcement services for both towns,” Chief Kerns wrote.
There were two open sergeant positions. Each town funded a position.
“We had six patrol officers interested in applying for the open supervisor positions, five eligible officers employed by Bar Harbor and only one Mount Desert officer who was eligible. Historically, promotions had remained within the town in which the positions were budgeted for,” Chief Kerns wrote. “However, to ensure we were promoting the most qualified officers to supervise our combined agency and with your support as well as Manager Smith’s, I chose to run an independent promotional assessment to determine the best qualified candidates and promote based on meritocracy.”
They chose Officer Chris Dickens, a Bar Harbor employee to replace Guildford. That promotion was effective March 17.
“At that point, Tim Bland returned to his normal patrol position and Chris took over the supervisory role of sergeant,” Chief Kerns wrote. “While Tim Bland was filling the role of temporary sergeant, the Town of Bar Harbor was invoicing the Town of Mount Desert monthly for 40% of Tim’s wage costs. As we were working through the transitions, we realized we should have been invoicing the Town of Mount Desert for 100% of Tim Bland's wage costs, since the sergeant position was funded 100% in the Mount Desert PD operating budget. Since Chris Dickens' promotion, we have continued to pay his wages through Bar Harbor's payroll with funding through the Bar Harbor Police Department budget.”
That was rectified Monday night. Bland has since retired from police work and is working for a private security company.
EMERGENCY DISPATCHING TEMPORARY SHARE EXTENDED
The staffing situation for the department’s dispatches was also discussed. Chief Kerns received the continuation of a hybrid dispatcher schedule that begin in April. The schedule is due to staffing shortages in Bar Harbor. Mount Desert dispatchers have been used to fill gaps as have dispatch-certified police officers.
In a July 9 memo, Chief Kerns wrote, “Since February of this year, we have been dealing with a dispatch staffing shortage at Bar Harbor PD which was the result of a full-time dispatcher resigning after accepting a position out-of-state. Attempts to fill this vacant position over the course of the next two months were unsuccessful.”
The original plan was to close the Bar Harbor dispatch when a shift was vacant and forward radio traffic and phone calls through Mount Desert’s dispatch.
“We, however, discovered that Bar Harbor’s phone system was not able to have calls forwarded easily or consistently,” Chief Kerns said. “We agreed on implementing a hybrid schedule between the towns.”
That schedule was meant to be for three months.
“This hybrid arrangement involved integrating two of our full-time Mount Desert dispatchers into the Bar Harbor vacancy. To accomplish this schedule, we were forced to close Mount Desert dispatch after 3 p.m. for seven days a week and have all calls forwarded to Bar Harbor from 3 p.m. to 7 a.m.,” he wrote. “We have been utilizing one full time dispatcher at Mount Desert PD from Monday through Friday, 7 a.m.- 3 p.m. Our second Mount Desert dispatcher has been splitting time between Mount Desert and Bar Harbor covering 7 a.m.-3 p.m. in Mount Desert on the weekend and covering shifts in Bar Harbor the remainder of the week. Our third Mount Desert dispatcher has been covering shifts strictly in Bar Harbor.”
In June, another Bar Harbor dispatcher who had worked in the department resigned and took a position at Acadia National Park. Lori Bartlett worked for the department for 16 years full time and two years part-time for a total of 18 years. She started full-time in Bar Harbor on April 15, 2008.
“This has created additional strains on our dispatch staff and has forced us to utilize full-time patrol officers who are certified as dispatchers to fill shifts. Fortunately, we have hired two new Bar Harbor employees who are currently in our dispatch FTO and who will continue to train through August,” Chief Kerns wrote. “As a result, the department will need to continue with this hybrid dispatcher schedule through August and potentially into September until our new employees are fully trained.”
If you’d like to donate to help support us, you can, but no pressure! Just click here.
Great report. It's a shame to lose Lori to ANP. Thank Lori for 16 years of service to Bar Harbor and really all of MDI. You will be greatly missed. Congratulations ANP on hiring of Lori from Bar Harbor.