There was some verbal sparring during Monday night's discussion on dispatch in Clarkston, but in the end officials agreed to stay in the ring and work on contract disputes.

Representatives from Asotin County, Clarkston, Asotin and Asotin County Fire District No. 1 plan to meet again in early January to figure out how much each entity should pay for Whitcom Dispatch services, emergency communication equipment and associated expenses. In addition, they agreed in principle to split the contract into two parts, with one based on call volumes from Whitcom Dispatch and the other on agreed-upon cost-sharing of infrastructure and support services.

The city of Clarkston and the fire district subcontract with Asotin County for enhanced 911 services, but Asotin hasn't been paying for dispatch because contract negotiations came to a standstill two years ago after questions surfaced about the actual costs. After digging into the numbers, Clarkston officials believe the city has been paying too much and they want to amend the current agreement, which expires next summer.

Asotin County Commissioner Brian Shinn began Monday night's discussion by reading a prepared statement that said the county doesn't want to make modifications to the mutually agreed-upon contract, but officials are interested in beginning talks about future contracts.

The three incumbent commissioners were not in office when the contracts were signed, but several city, fire and police officials who are at the table now were part of the process when the agreements were approved, he said.

"We are anxious to negotiate the terms of a new contract with all parties, but because this group wishes to include the city of Asotin in the talks, we respectfully deny the request to negotiate a contract with only seven months to run," Shinn said.

Clarkston City Attorney Todd Richardson said the three entities want to pay their fair shares and want to work with the county, but he became frustrated when a county official started the meeting by saying they didn't want to negotiate the current contract with Clarkston.

Asotin County has been overcharging the city by about $127,000 a year for the past four years, Richardson said, and Clarkston doesn't want to overpay another year. The entire Whitcom bill is around $150,000, but Clarkston has been paying almost $200,000 a year to the county, and the bill should have been closer to $72,000, according to Richardson.

When asked why the city didn't have any heartburn when the contract was signed several years ago, Richardson said, "representations were made to Clarkston that were not true."

Shinn said the figures put forth by the county are not fiction, and he objected to any "bad faith" characterization of Asotin County.

"I thought we were going to talk rather than name call," he said.

At one point, a $385,000 emergency services reserve fund was called into question, and Dan Hally, E-911 coordinator, explained the fund has always had a large balance and was put into place years ago by the county commissioners with money the county received from the state for reimbursements. Hally also defended the 911 costs he's provided, saying any estimates were his best, good faith efforts to determine the costs the county were incurring for dispatch.

Richardson said as the process moves forward, he and the city councils want hard-and-fast numbers that are verifiable.

"Estimates won't cut it," he said.

Each entity agreed to discuss how to proceed with the dispatch talks at their respective meetings next week. One of the questions will be how many representatives to have from each group, along with a meeting time and date.

"There's a little blood on the table, but I'm glad we got this started," Shinn said.

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Sandaine may be contacted at kerris@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2264. Follow her on Twitter @newsfromkerri.