Douglas County commissioners are poised to nix the hiring of up to six new emergency dispatchers, a move that would save the county about $64,000 next year.

Commissioner Charles Jones said he didn’t buy the argument that the county’s Emergency Dispatch Center was so understaffed dispatchers couldn’t take lunch breaks, or even go to the bathroom.

Jones added up the department’s numbers and determined there were 42,266 hours of employee time available to cover 40,880 hours of dispatch work.

“I don’t see the problem,” Jones told Jim Denney, the county’s director of emergency communications, during a budget hearing Monday morning. “I frankly don’t understand the demand, and I don’t see the need. Sorry.”

But emergency officials argued the relatively modest financial savings would end up costing the community through the continued erosion of efficiency at the center, where workers take all 911 calls and coordinate emergency police, fire and ambulance responses.

The center’s struggles are caused by too few people doing too many things, said Ron Olin, Lawrence police chief.

“We now have the proper infrastructure,” he said. “What we don’t have now is adequate personnel to do the things we have to do.”

Cutting the positions would go against the wishes not only of Olin, but also Sheriff Rick Trapp and Chief Jim Swain of Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical. All three have supported hiring new dispatchers, intended to fill the ranks of a staff depleted by burnout and high turnover.

The dispatch center is financed jointly by city and county governments. The city pays 66 percent. The county pays 34 percent.

Lawrence city commissioners already have agreed, unanimously, to pay $125,000 to cover the city’s share of new salaries. The county’s share would be $64,000, the number backed by all county department heads and included in the $44 million budget recommended by Craig Weinaug, county administrator.

But the support stopped there.

Jones said he couldn’t see hiring more than two new dispatchers, and that was only if the center cut its overtime spending in half. Jere McElhaney, commission chairman, said he could support hiring “maybe one” new dispatcher; Commissioner Bob Johnson said he would wait until this morning to make a decision, after hearing Denney make his case one more time.

This morning’s budget hearing begins at 8:30 at the county courthouse, 1100 Mass.

County commissioners will determine the center’s hiring plans. If they decide against new hiring, the county would not bill the city for its share of the unused salaries, effectively settling the issue between the two governments.

“We’re really in the controlling seat on this,” Weinaug said.

The dispatch issue is the only one remaining before the county’s 2003 budget is settled.

Including the hiring of dispatchers, the owner of a $150,000 home would pay $480.93 in property taxes for the county’s budget, down 9 cents from this year’s $481.02. Cutting all six of the new dispatchers from next year’s budget would save the owner of a $150,000 home about 38 cents more.

No other county department can afford to hire six new employees, Jones said, and that means the dispatch center must present a convincing case if it indeed needs that much help.

“It’s my job to crunch the numbers,” he said after Monday’s hearing. “It’s my job to ask the tough questions.”