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Falk, County Board want to add 911 staff

Bill Novak  —  5/22/2008 10:20 am

Citing the public's lack of confidence in the 911 emergency call system, Dane County Board supervisors are clamoring to get two new dispatchers hired as quickly as possible and to have regular monthly reports from the 911 director on call volumes, hold times and dropped calls.

Supervisors Jack Martz, Eileen Bruskewitz and Ronn Ferrell and others are sponsoring a resolution being introduced at Thursday night's County Board meeting to add the two dispatchers and make adjustments in the 2008 county budget to pay for the new hires.

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in Room 201 at the City-County Building.

Bruskewitz said the public needs to regain its confidence in the 911 system.

"You don't mess around with this," she said. "The public said loud and clear, do something about this now."

County Executive Kathleen Falk is also pushing to get three vacancies at the 911 center filled as quickly as possible, asking 911 director Joe Norwick in a memo Wednesday to reduce the time needed to fill the jobs.

The vacancies came about when two dispatchers, also called communicators, left the department and a third dispatcher asked for reassignment following the mishandling of the cell phone 911 call made by Brittany Zimmermann, who was murdered in her apartment in early April.

The vacancies are not new positions.

A 2004 audit of the county's criminal justice system recommended eight new dispatchers be hired for the 911 system. If the two new positions are approved, the eight-position recommendation would be filled.

Three positions were added to the 911 center in 2005, one in 2006 and two this year.

Falk said in her memo to Norwick that he can use limited term employment money to hire the two additional 911 dispatchers so they could begin training at the same time as the dispatchers hired to fill the three vacancies.

The board resolution wants monthly reports from the 911 center, including statistics on the total number of 911 calls separated into land line, voice over internet protocol (VOIP), and wireless (cell phone) calls, call volumes of non-emergency calls, average talk time, average hold time, abandoned calls (dropped by the caller before reaching the dispatcher) and dropped calls (by either the dispatcher or caller).

The resolution also wants the 911 director to use software from the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials to determine how many dispatchers are needed in Dane County based on population and number of emergency calls coming in.

"We have to do the right thing and find out just how many dispatchers we actually need, and not just put Band-Aids on stuff," Bruskewitz said. "The first duty of government is supposed to be public safety."

County Board Chair Scott McDonell is also proposing a resolution to hire two new dispatchers for the 911 center. Introduced resolutions could be expedited without going through committees, so final action on hiring new 911 dispatchers could come as early as the first meeting in June on June 5.

Bill Novak  —  5/22/2008 10:20 am