Dane County officials failed to follow a consultant's staffing recommendation made in a 2004 report that warned of a potential "catastrophic event" if staffing levels were not immediately increased.

The "strategic plan," prepared by Seattle-based MTG Management Consultants, recommended hiring five additional dispatchers, one manager and two technology professionals. "Additional staff increases will likely be required in the near future as 911 activity continues to increase," the report said.

MTG project officer Robert Kaelin said Monday that in both the 2004 report and in conversations with county staff, he recommended the hires be made "right away."

Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, 911 center director Joe Norwick and operations manager Rich McVicar have said the recommendations have been implemented as part of a five-year plan and that there are no current staffing problems at the 911 center.

They have been conducting a monthlong internal investigation of the 911 center's mishandling of a call from homicide victim Brittany Zimmermann's cell phone at around the time she died.

Call volume was issue

Kaelin contradicted how county officials have portrayed the report, saying the eight extra staff members would have gotten the 911 center to where it should have been in 2004.

"It was the call volume that was the issue," he said. "As I recall, we were fairly specific in that study."

The report found that Dane County had 63 operational staff members and 614,000 calls into the 911 center in 2002, or a ratio of 10.3 staff members per 100,000 calls. The report found the average ratio in nine other call centers around the country was 11.3.

Kaelin said 911 calls have increased 3 percent a year for the last 10 years nationwide. County officials did not provide more recent local data.

In addition to the eight additions, the report noted that more "staff increases will likely be required in the near future."

Falk characterized the report Monday as a five-year plan and the recommendation to add eight staff members as a goal she plans to achieve by 2009.

She emphasized that since she took office in 1997, the county increased the center's budget from $3.4 million to $5.5 million and has added eight positions, six of them since the 2004 report came out. That includes two supervisors, a quality assurance manager, a database coordinator and four new dispatchers, though the fourth was included in this year's budget and hasn't been hired yet.

"We have implemented all the recommendations in the 2004 report on staffing levels," Falk said. "We are on schedule."

She declined to say anything more after learning about Kaelin's comments about when the recommendations should have been implemented.

Kaelin said Dane County's 911 center also made training improvements. But, he said, "the majority of staffing changes require budgeting, buy-in (from the communities) and the will to do it."

"This was an immediate recommendation, as soon as they could get funding in the budget," Kaelin said. "In order to accomplish what they wanted to, they needed to increase staffing immediately."

Zimmermann's call

Some have wondered if staffing levels played a role in the failure of a 911 dispatcher to return the 911 call in the Zimmermann case. Norwick said the dispatcher didn't hear anything on the line, hung up and then responded to other calls without calling back Zimmermann's phone as policy prescribes.

Falk said Monday she apologized to Zimmermann's family for the error but was emphatic that staffing concerns have been addressed.

Falk's chief of staff, Topf Wells, said the early indication from the internal investigation is that staffing was not the problem in the botched 911 call.

"So far, I have not seen one single reference to inadequate staffing as an issue in this call," Wells said.

Funding discussed

Kaelin said he met with Wells to discuss the recommendations. Wells said he didn't remember Kaelin talking about adding the staff immediately, but he didn't dispute Kaelin's account.

Kaelin said longer-term recommendations looked at other funding models, Kaelin said. "The (Dane County) 911 center has been historically underfunded. We were looking at ways to steady the funding stream … to try to figure out how we could actually fund the operating and technological needs of the center."

Wells said the county has examined alternatives to funding the center's operations, such as a cell-phone surcharge that the state collects and distributes to counties for infrastructure improvements.

Wells said then-911 center director Richard "Duke" Ellingson thought it was a good report, "but he never indicated to me that he attached the same importance of adding the eight positions immediately as the consultant." Ellingson is retired and didn't return calls for comment.

The dispatcher, who remains anonymous, is still employed in Dane County government and was not put on administrative leave. Wells said she was "incredibly concerned" and almost immediately requested a transfer.

MTG did the four-month strategic plan for $96,000, though it actually took seven months to finish, according to Kaelin. The study was started in July 2003 and finished in March 2004.

The report stated that Dane County "faces possible liability and the potential for a catastrophic event" if it didn't address the understaffing problem. "At best, services will be provided inconsistently and not to the level expected and deserved by user agencies and the citizens of Dane County," the report warned.

No outside consultants have provided a progress report on the changes at the 911 center since 2004. Falk said she relies on the 911 center director to report on staffing needs in each budget cycle.

Meeting requested

County Board members Jack Martz, David Wiganowsky, Ronn Ferrell, Cynda Solberg, Kurt Schlicht and Duane Gau sent a letter Monday to board Chairman Scott McDonell requesting that every board member receive a copy of the 2004 report and a board meeting be scheduled in the next two weeks to discuss what has been done in response to the recommendations.

Dane County Board members called for a new audit of the center last week.

McDonell responded Monday calling for a joint meeting of the Public Protection and Judiciary and Personnel and Finance committees Thursday at 5:30 p.m. to answer board member questions.

McDonell said the 911 center's internal investigation of the mishandled call, which Madison police requested immediately after learning about it, will be completed in the next few days.

County officials and Madison police held dueling news conferences Thursday in which they issued differing accounts of whether police should have been dispatched as a result of the call. County and city officials plan to release a joint statement later this week.