Fired Monday, Warren County 911 Dispatch Center Director Geoffrey Greetham attributed at least some of the reason for his departure to difficulties flowing from attempts to move equipment and operations into a new location.

Six of the seven officials who compose the management panel for the center met in closed session for about an hour Monday and the chairman, Vicksburg Fire Chief Keith Rogers, indicated while leaving the meeting that Greetham would lose his job.

The decision means the center, which operates on a $1.4 million annual budget, will have its third director in just more than two years.

Rogers declined to give reasons for Greetham’s dismissal other than &#8220expectations were not met.” Greetham, a retired Army major chosen for the post from more than 70 applicants, said he wasn’t really clear on why he was fired, either.

&#8220I submitted my budget on time,” he said.

Rogers said the position will be advertised and current employees will be allowed to apply.

After years in a former breakroom at the Warren County Jail, dispatchers, who work three or four to a shift, were moved to a basement room under the steps of the Warren County Courthouse.

In a bid to improve conditions and upgrade equipment, the Warren County Board of Supervisors purchased from the City of Vicksburg the former Southern Printing building at Clay and First North streets for $230,000 in March 2006.

Greetham said Monday other locations, including a church, were available and may have needed less work, but the commission made its decision.

&#8220The electrical would not have been much to upgrade on them,” Greetham said. &#8220But I guess it’s not a good idea to sell a church.”

The building’s second purpose has been to provide a climate-controlled environment for the county’s new touch-screen voting machines, but little actual progress has been made toward retrofitting and installing about $800,000 worth of new equipment officials agreed to buy in last year’s budget.

Hiring an electrical engineer by month’s end is now seen as key to getting work under way this budget year. The project’s architect, Jones-Zander Ltd. of Grenada, assured of 12 percent of eventual construction costs, last updated Greetham on its progress about a week ago.

&#8220They were talking about the position of console 2,” Greetham said, indicating the firm was still far away from having plans on which electricians could bid. That means the center’s dispatchers will remain in the courthouse basement well into 2008.

Greetham was hired in March 2005 to take over the operation beset by personnel and morale problems. Today, all but one of the dispatching slots is filled.

For five months in 2006, Greetham also served as interim director of the Warren County Emergency Management Agency as supervisors sought, however briefly, to consolidate the function of hazard mitigation and emergency dispatch.

The dispatch center was created after county voters agreed in 1990 to pay for 911 technology to be used to aid emergency response. Before then, 911 calls were answered at the Vicksburg Police Department and then transferred to the fire department, sheriff’s department or other appropriate agency. The new technology also allowed consoles to display site information, such as caller locations.

The local management board is composed of the fire chief, police chief, sheriff, a supervisor, the county emergency management official, the mayor and the county volunteer fire coordinator.