LISBON — The Town Council plans to visit the local police dispatch center and the Lewiston-Auburn 911 Communications Center in Auburn as it considers its options for services.

Council Chairman Allen Ward asked Lisbon Police Chief Mark Hagan at Tuesday night’s council meeting to schedule times for the visits before the next council workshop.

For more than three hours Tuesday evening, councilors discussed consolidating the town’s emergency dispatch services with Androscoggin County’s, but no decision was made.

The town held similar discussions with the county in 2009, 2012 and 2015.

In 2012, the council voted to support the Lisbon consolidation plan with the county dispatch, Town Manager Diane Barnes said in an email. “In a separate motion, they voted to keep Lisbon’s dispatch and not go with the L-A 911 plan, if the county proposal failed.

In 2015, the council voted not to move forward with consolidating dispatch services with Androscoggin County.

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Ward said he does not want to rush the decision. He agreed with Hagan that it’s not all about savings — it’s about looking at the town’s options, opportunities and problems.

“If it’s not about money and cents, then I don’t know why we’re going down this road,” former Councilor Eric Metivier said.

Councilor Norman Albert suggested that if the town were to switch dispatch services, the $94,002 in savings could go toward hiring another police officer. It would mean having two officers on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Police Department takes 911 calls and those made to its phone number, 353-2500.

“If we don’t take anything out of tonight,” Lisbon School Committee Chairwoman Traci Austin said, “we need to work better on when to call 353-2500 and when not to.”

“We shouldn’t be calling the 353-2500 number if it’s an emergency,” Councilor Kasie Koble said. “It should be strictly a nonemergency line.”

Councilor Mark Lunt suggested councilors visit the county and local dispatch services to compare how they operate.

Ward asked Hagan to schedule tours of both.

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