BUTLER TWP — State police on Friday explained its pilot third-party towing services administration program at a meeting at Butler County Community College.

However, the audience of about 50 representatives of towing companies had strong reservations and a petition that says a good share of them don’t plan to participate.

Currently, when state police need a vehicle towed, the officer on the scene contacts a communications officer at the state police barracks. That communications officer calls a local towing company to respond.

State police called for tow trucks 880 times in 2013 in Butler County.

Under the new program, the officer on the scene will contact the barracks. The person at the barracks would type the information into a computer program that is relayed to a company in California. That company would locate and dispatch the nearest qualified towing company.

State Police Lt. Gerhard Wendt, who was the main speaker at the meeting, said state police have been researching the idea of a third-party dispatcher for about three years to free up the time of the troopers and to standardize the towing process.

The pilot program run with AutoReturn, the company that was contracted, began in Crawford, Erie, Venango and Warren counties in December.

It begins this month in Butler, Armstrong, Beaver, Lawrence and Mercer counties.

But many of the towers said they have concerns about the proposal, and a petition was presented to the state police reportedly with 74 towing companies and 28 volunteer fire departments that do not intend to contract or respond to the new system. The organizations were spread out among the counties targeted for the pilot program as well as Allegheny, Westmoreland, Jefferson and Clearfield counties.

When given their turn to speak at the meeting, the towers questioned having to pass a $35 upcharge on to the consumers. They wondered why so much money is being sent to California, instead of keeping jobs in the state. And they worried that additional steps in the dispatch process could cause delays that would result in safety concerns.

“We’ve got people’s lives on the line here,” said Dennis Norris of D & D Towing.

Norris and others expressed a concern with losing the one-on-one dialogue they have with someone who knows them, knows the situation and knows the local terrain.

State police officials responded the information AutoReturn gets would be provided by the local communications officer, not someone in California. And, if the tower has further questions, they still could call the barracks.

Ray Krouse, a representative of AutoReturn, said $22.50 of the $35 fee paid by consumers is kept by his company. The rest of the money is kept by the towers or used to offset tows where no one ever pays the tab. The state police receive none of the money and they pay no money to AutoReturn.

To dispel rumors, Krouse stressed that his company does not own trucks or storage lots and has no plans to buy any.

Wendt said the state police picked AutoReturn because no Pennsylvania companies were suited to do the job. PSP put out a public solicitation, and AutoReturn best fulfilled the organization’s needs.

Some of the towers suggested the job could be done better by local 911 dispatchers because those people already dispatch tow trucks for municipal police departments.

However, Wendt said it would be impractical, if not impossible, for the state police to iron out contracts with each of the state’s 67 emergency centers.

Wendt told the crowd that they chose to test the program during the winter in this region because they could be assured of bad weather, lots of tolls and a good reading on the program’s function.

He said the state police would be looking for feedback before implementing the program statewide.