AUBURN — The Androscoggin County Commission is taking another peek at Lewiston-Auburn’s 911 system and a possible merger with county services.

The three-member commission wants town and city managers to look at how a merged center might be governed.

“We asked them if they thought there might be some governance model that might work and if they could report back to us,” Commission Chairman Randall Greenwood said. The board has targeted May 2 for a report.

The move follows two nights of consecutive City Council resolutions — Monday in Auburn and Tuesday in Lewiston — that aim to pull some dispatch money from each city’s share of the county tax bill, beginning Jan 1, 2013.

Councilors argue that they should not have to pay for small-town dispatching since their own center, Lewiston-Auburn 911, takes care of their needs.

For years, the county’s 14 municipalities have differed over how emergency dispatching might best be handled.

The county’s dispatch center answers land line emergency calls for 12 of the county’s 14 municipalities, serving as a public-safety answering point, or PSAP. The county center communicates with its deputies, police officers in Mechanic Falls, Sabattus and Livermore Falls, and with fire departments in seven small towns.

This year, with the county’s dispatching equipment nearing the end of its life, the issue has become critical.

“It seems like everything has come to a head for a variety of reasons,” Commissioner Beth Bell said Wednesday.

Greenwood said Wednesday’s action expanded on the notion that eventually a merged system made sense for the whole county.

Bell, who was worried about the cost of a lawsuit if the county and the cities cannot agree, said she, too, would like to see a merged system.

“Let’s get it done,” she said. “Let’s just consolidate and get this thing done.”

Commissioner Elaine Makas counseled commissioners not to forget that a decade of dispatch talks have broken down over money, not governance.

“I don’t believe we’ve resolved all the monetary issues,” she said.

All three commissioners insisted that no decision about dispatching had been made.

“We haven’t given up on any option,” Greenwood said.

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