Carpentersville has notified QuadCom 911, the agency that provides emergency dispatch services, that it’s ending its contract with them effective May 2027 in a move projected to save about $2 million over five years.
QuadCom formed through a 1979 intergovernmental agreement between eight local municipalities. In addition to Carpentersville, it handles emergency dispatching calls for police and fire in East Dundee, Barrington Hills, West Dundee, South Barrington and Rutland Dundee Fire District.
The Carpentersville Village Board recently approved a resolution to notify QuadCom of its decision, which requires 12 months’ notice per the contract.
Officials with QuadCom were not available for comment.
The decision to leave QuadCom came after “an increasing review of options that our village really believes would be moving us to a more resilient dispatch agency with the added benefit of a substantial price decrease,” Village Manager Brad Stewart said.
While village trustees have not voted on a contract with a new vendor, it has received a proposal from Southeast Emergency Communications (SEECOM) based in Crystal Lake. It serves 13 agencies, including neighboring Algonquin, Lake in the Hills and Huntley.
SEECOM is offering a fixed rate of $37.06 per call in the first and second year of a five-year contract, Stewart said. The rate escalates over the remaining three years and tops out at $52.06 per call, he said.
The fifth-year rate is about $10 less per call than what QuadCom is charging in its 2026-27 budget year, Stewart said.
In 2025, Carpentersville police received 13,996 calls for service and the fire department had 4,274 calls, according to village data.
As the largest agency in the service area, Carpentersville was told it was facing a 32.58% increase in the 2026-27 fiscal year.
Another reason behind the decision was QuadCom’s plans to develop “ancillary services that, to us, were not the core function of providing dispatch service to our residents,” Stewart said.
One service, he said, was the addition of drone technology, which would add nearly $720,000 to the new four-year contract. However, there wasn’t any consideration for how the technology would be provided or funded from a staffing standpoint, Stewart said.
Beyond that, Carpentersville already has a drone unit so QuadCom’s service wouldn’t benefit the village, Stewart said.
“We are not against drone technology,” Stewart said. “(Given the cost) we feel QuadCom could use that type of money to invest in its core dispatch function, that being technology and staffing.”
SEECOM’s proposal offers more than double the work stations and staff than provided by QuadCom, Stewart said. SEECOM also has enough space to take on QuadCom employees should Carpentersville’s move results in the two agencies deciding to consolidate in the future, he said.
“They have done technology updates and radio updates, and they are currently updating their CAD system. It is, by all accounts, a state-of-the-art operation,” Stewart said of SEECOM.
The next step is for the village board to approve a contract with SEECOM, which may happen in the next few months, he said.
There are a lot of preparations to be done over the next year to accommodate the switch, he said. However, SEECOM is currently a backup for QuadCom so the transition should ultimately be seamless and result in no disruption to 911 services once implemented, he said.
Until it moved to another building on the Carpentersvlle municipal campus, QuadCom operated inside Carpentersville Village Hall. The agency pays $40 in rent under the terms of its 40-year lease with the village.
Carpentersville will continue to rent the building to QuadCom, Stewart said.
“We are not looking to displace QuadCom. We want to be good citizens and good neighbors to all agencies part of QuadCom and QuadCom itself,” he said.
QuadCom’s executive committee has recommended that its board of directors hire a consultant to conduct a comprehensive, research-based study of its current operational, financial and administrative structure and look at the costs of potential consolidation, Stewart said.
“We do believe there is a likely value and benefit to all of the agencies if all were to consider consolidation into another dispatch agency,” Stewart said. “We very much have recommended that the other agencies consider it.”
Regardless of what other municipalities decide to do, “we are confident the decision we are making is the right one for our village and our residents,” he said.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
