Auburn Select Board Votes Unanimously to Join Regional 911 Dispatch Center

AUBURN -- September 22, 2025, Auburn Select Board votes unanimously to join regional 911 dispatch center, projecting $4.6 million in savings. The board approved membership in the Central Massachusetts Regional Emergency Communications Center, known as SEMR, after Police Chief Coleman and Fire Chief Mills presented a joint statement saying the town has cycled through effectively its entire dispatch staff, 11 full-time and four part-time employees, in five years. The current communications center costs $1.2 million annually; the estimated SEMR assessment is $368,590 per year, fully covered by a State 911 incentive grant for the first three years. State 911 representative Peter Kinis told the board that in the history of Massachusetts regional dispatch, only one agency has sought to leave a regional center, and that agency joined a different regional rather than reverting to standalone operations. Dispatchers' union president Anthony Duray said workers' main concern was being required to reapply for their jobs rather than transfer automatically, calling the process "rushed," though Chief Coleman countered that labor negotiations, and the answers those negotiations would produce, cannot begin until communities formally vote to join.