Greenup 911 director suspended

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February 5, 2010

By KENNETH HART — The Independent The Daily Independent Fri Feb 05, 2010, 09:33 PM EST

Greenup — Greenup County’s E-911 board on Friday indefinitely suspended Scott Brown, the county’s director of emergency communications.

The vote was to suspend Brown, with pay, pending further action of the board. That action could come at a special E-911 board meeting scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday in the Greenup Fiscal Court meeting room. The only matter on the agenda for that session is personnel.

The board also named assistant E-911 Director Sherry Chapman to replace Brown on an interim basis.

Friday’s discussion that preceded Brown’s suspension all took place in executive session. The board opened the meeting by going into closed session, in which it met for about 45 minutes. The meeting was opened briefly, but the board then voted to go back into executive session and met behind closed door for about 15 more minutes.

Board members didn’t say specifically why Brown was being suspended. However, the board’s action appears to be at least partly the result of a Kentucky State Police audit that placed the ability of the county’s law-enforcement agencies to access the National Crime Information Computer (NCIC) and Law Information Network of Kentucky (LINK) in jeopardy.

The audit revealed that Greenup E-911 was out of compliance with state LINK and NCIC standards in several areas. Board members said that Brown misrepresented the seriousness of the situation to them and failed to act to correct the deficiencies.

Flatwoods Police Chief Tom Haynes said the board was told that Greenup was out of compliance in only one area. In actuality, it was five areas.

“Nothing was fixed like it should have been,” he said.

As a result, the KSP upgraded its sanctions against Greenup E-911 from Level C to Level B. Under Level B, Greenup has six months to correct the problems, or lose its LINK/NCIC terminal.

One of the issues was subsequently rectified, although the county remains out of compliance in four areas, officials said.

LINK and NCIC are used by police to check for outstanding warrants, to run vehicle license tags and for other purposes.

Members of the KSP compliance team that conducted the audit attended Friday’s meeting and pledged to work with Greenup officials to resolve the problems.

“The last thing we want is for you to lose your (LINK/NCIC) access,” said team member Gary Jennings. “It’s a safety issue for officers and we realize that.”

Joi Jones, another member of the compliance team, told the board it was “a rarity” for 911 systems in Kentucky to reach Level B sanctions. Usually, a Level C notice is sufficient to spur agencies to correct deficiencies, she said.

Team members said they were not authorized to go into specifics about what Greenup’s shortcomings were and advised a reporter to submit an open records request to obtain that information.

Greenup has had a county-wide 911 dispatching system since 2004. Brown has been director for about three years. He was named to the position after the previous director, Scott Floyd, resigned to take a teaching job.

KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.

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