From Bill Hersey in The Dayton Daily News:

House Speaker Jon Husted and state Rep. Kevin DeWine want to give Montgomery and Greene counties a financial incentive as both counties consider combining 911 emergency dispatching of police and fire departments.

The state capital improvements budget, to be introduced next week, will include "a minimum" of $500,000 for Greene County and $1 million for Montgomery County to help with startup costs for combined systems, said Husted, R-Kettering.

He and DeWine, R-Fairborn, have urged local governments to consolidate services to free up money for development and other priorities.

Husted said that for Montgomery County to receive the money, local governments representing at least 60 percent of the county's population would have to agree to participate in the combined system.

The same requirement probably would apply to Greene County, he said.

Startup costs form one of the barriers to creating combined 911 dispatch systems, and the state grants should help overcome this, Husted said.

"We're talking about using a small amount of money that will free up millions of dollars of more money at the local level for priorities," he said.

In Montgomery County, officials have set a Feb. 1 deadline for local communities to decide if they want the county to handle 911 emergency dispatching.

The sheriff already dispatches for about a third of the county's residents under contract with various communities.

It would cost about $6.5 million annually to operate the combined system, which is $6.5 million less than it currently costs the county and 14 communities to operate dispatch centers, county officials believe.

On the surface, this appears to be a good cost-cutting idea that will save taxpayers millions of dollars while providing the same critical service.