For Butler County Emergency Services to vet potential dispatcher candidates, it requires a tremendous amount of time and resources, said director of county emergency services Steve Bicehouse during a Butler County commissioners meeting Wednesday, July 8.

After hearing from Bicehouse, commissioners approved a consulting agreement with organizations CritiCall and parent company TestGenius to provide licensing for dispatcher testing software for the next five years.

“This is the software we use as a predictor for candidates for dispatchers and gives us a great indication on how they’ll perform,” Bicehouse said during the meeting. “We want to try to make sure we get the right candidate for the work that we do.”

The county will pay a five-year discounted price, spending $3,993 the first year, $4,316 the second, $4,639 the third, $4,639 the fourth and $4,639 the fifth.

The license provided by the testing package would allow Butler County Emergency Services the ability to administer an unlimited number of online tests and would ease the strain of training new emergency dispatchers.

In Pennsylvania, certification requires dispatchers to go through over 40 hours of training before they can take a call. Following that, there is a six-month training period for most people, Bicehouse said.

TestGenius, is a product of Biddle Consulting Group and is an annual, unlimited online testing subscription, according to information provided by Emergency Services ahead of the meeting.

While emergency services is “not constantly looking” for new dispatchers, Bicehouse added, there is one open dispatcher position they are gathering interested candidates for and scheduling them for testing.

The next Butler County Commissioners meeting will be held at 10 a.m. in the public meeting room on the first floor of the county government center.