DRIGGS — Fire Chief Mike Maltaverne told Teton County commissioners in a Sept. 29 letter that his fire district, Teton County Fire & Rescue, is stepping back from its offer to pay for an outside review of the county's 911 dispatch center until there is "demonstrated commitment and full cooperation from all parties."
The county's budget for the 2027 fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1, raises dispatch spending 79 percent, to $1,232,290, and adds two dispatcher positions. The county has also set aside $540,000 of its general fund cash to upgrade dispatch hardware and software. The Sheriff's Office runs the dispatch center, and the county is negotiating on its behalf a five-year contract for medical and fire call-taking protocols. In a Sept. 17 email, County Administrator Billie Siddoway proposed shelving the outside review for a year while the county implements changes already approved.
Maltaverne emailed the letter to Chairman Brad Wolfe on Tuesday morning and copied Siddoway, Sheriff Clint Lemieux, County Clerk Kim Keeley, and city officials in Driggs and Victor. "Due to the apparent lack of support from the County Administrator, the Sheriff and members of the Board of County Commissioners, the Fire District will step back from conducting and funding the Operational Assessment of the 911 Center," he wrote.
He named "lack of transparency, lack of effective communications, and a lack of coordination and collaboration" as the reasons, and wrote that the review "was never meant to be weaponized as it has been by County staff." It calls the county's added staff, infrastructure, software and new medical and fire dispatch procedures "steps in the right direction," and says the district "remains open to participating in and contributing to an independent operational assessment in the future."
The advisory committee the board agreed to form in May was meant first to rewrite the dispatch contract between the county and the district. By July it had widened into a public-safety task force, and the county was asking the cities to help pay for dispatch. The district's letter still asks for "a revised Service Agreement." The district has not paid for dispatch in the county's 2026 fiscal year, which runs from Oct. 1, 2025, through Sept. 30. On July 1, Maltaverne told commissioners it was withholding the payment until it got "a contract that works." "Full transparency, ask your clerk, we haven't paid you a penny this year," he said.
Maltaverne sent Siddoway a draft request for proposals on Aug. 26. "I have verbal approval from the Fire Commissioners to proceed with the RFP process, identify costs and ultimately pay for the study, barring any unreasonable amount," he wrote.
The draft asks a consultant to examine ten areas, from staffing and the center's budget to medical and fire dispatch protocols and whether dispatch could be consolidated with Madison County's. Its review of medical protocols covers "medical priority dispatch systems in use," the kind of system the pending contract would buy.
Of consolidation, Maltaverne wrote in the same email, "I fully understand that this is off the table." He proposed studying it anyway and keeping that part of the results "for internal, future use or reference."
