It’s taking Pierce County 911 operators longer to answer your calls for help. Here’s why
Pierce County’s emergency communications agency has more than 20 budgeted positions unfilled, causing its timeliness in responding to calls to dip below the national standard.
A shortage of dispatchers also is leading to burnout, has hurt retention and left employees with mandated overtime, which in 2021 cost the public at least $1 million more than it did in 2020.
South Sound 911 executive director Deborah Grady said the agency is working to hire as many qualified candidates as possible.
“Staffing has been a chronic plague for the agency,” Grady said.
South Sound 911 is an independent, intergovernmental agency overseen by a board of directors made up of elected officials and public safety officials across Pierce County. The agency was created in 2012 as a way to streamline radio communications for first responders. The center is responsible for relaying emergencies from the public to fire departments and police, including Tacoma’s police and fire departments and the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. South Sound 911 responded to almost 742,000 calls between January and September 2021, 60 percent of which were deemed emergencies.
Last year, the emergency communications agency moved into a long-awaited new building at 3580 Pacific Ave. In 2011, voters approved a tax of a penny on every $10 purchase to build the $59 million communications building.
Including management, the call center has 118 call-ready dispatchers with nine part-time employees on the job today. The agency is budgeted to have 142 call-ready dispatchers, spokesperson Kris McNamar said.
Insufficient staffing levels have impacted call response.
Overall call performance dropped in 2021 compared to previous years, to a level below the national standard. The country’s leading organization on 911 dispatch centers, the National Emergency Number Association, has set a target for centers to answer 95 percent of 911 calls within 20 seconds. South Sound 911 has reported a 2021 rate of 93.6 percent.
Pierce County Council member Amy Cruver (R-Eatonville) said public safety is the first responsibility of government. She has asked for the county’s Public Safety Committee to discuss steps to alleviate the staffing needs.
“To learn that the agency responsible for dispatching emergency assistance is struggling to provide the services it was directed to provide, despite having lucrative funding sources and a state of the art building, is cause for concern,” she said in a statement to The News Tribune.
Overtime
Overtime expenses have risen steeply in the last year.
According to the most recent figures available, the agency spent $4.89 million dollars on overtime from January to September 2021. It had budgeted $2.6 million for the entire year. Money saved from unfilled positions helped to cover those costs, McNamar said.
From January to September of 2021, overtime costs for fire communications doubled that of 2020’s tally with $698,870 spent.
In both 2019 and 2020, the agency spent about $2.8 million on overtime for law enforcement dispatchers, but by September 2021, more than $3.1 million had been spent.
The emergency dispatchers union, Teamsters Local Union No. 117, said its members have raised concerns over staffing numerous times.
“Many of our members have been working an inordinate amount of overtime — hundreds of hours a year in some cases,” union secretary-treasurer John Scearcy said. “Many employees have had an insufficient number of days off to rest and are suffering from exhaustion and burnout.”
If not enough workers volunteer for overtime or someone falls sick, staff can be mandated to work overtime, Grady said.
“We want our employees to have work-life balance and to be able to make sure the employees have the time off, so that we reduce mandatory overtime needed to be correctly staffed,” she said.
Overtime was acute during a COVID-19 outbreak at the center last summer.
An outbreak surged through the dispatch center from late July into August, causing “critical staffing levels,” according to emails obtained by The News Tribune.
An employee reported to the Washington State Department of Labor on July 29 that COVID-19 protocol was not being followed. The complaint said South Sound 911 was not following masking protocols and employees were showing up to work sick.
The agency responded to L&I that it has several mitigation measures in place, including mask mandates and supervisory screening of employees with COVID-19 symptoms. Staff were asked to present a vaccination card or wear masks unless they were eating or drinking.
The Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department reported on Aug. 6 that South Sound 911 had 17 COVID-19 cases.
In at least one instance during the outbreak, management directed staff to use the radio for “priority traffic,” emails show.
“Basically, when we are down to 3 (or even 2 the other day for a couple of hours), we will not be able to respond on the radio or phone as quickly as we normally would. If officers can reserve calls for priority (confirmations, clears, emergency entries) that would be appreciated. We obviously won’t turn anyone away, but there could be significant delays,” assistant director of Information Services Rebecca Hendricks said in an email to staff on Aug. 4.
Before the outbreak, the communications department’s vaccination rate was 39 percent. As of Jan. 3, the rate was 73 percent, according to McNamara. Emails during the outbreak show a change in regulation from allowing self-attestation on vaccination status to requiring proof of vaccination. Those unvaccinated were directed to wear masks during their shifts.
As during the summer outbreak, Grady expects trained managers and leadership to step in to help during any future COVID-19 outbreaks.
“COVID has been a concern for the last two years as we have continually adapted to new/changing information, requirements or mandates. With the current surge, we have continued mitigation measures to help us get through this new event and through the peak,” she said.
After publication, South Sound 911 announced a second COVID outbreak throughout December into January. At least 28 employees have tested positive for the coronavirus since Dec. 17.
Difficulty hiring, retaining
Former South Sound 911 board director Lillian Hunter said the agency has faced staffing shortages for years. The emergency call center has worked hard to recruit and retain staff, but the job is demanding and exhausting.
“They are the real first responders because they take the call before the police and fire get there. That work takes a toll,” Hunter said.
Dispatchers responding to emergency calls all day is inherently stressful, according to National Emergency Number Association’s executive director April Heinze.
“You go from things like a mother calling because she accidentally locked her child in a car to somebody who’s now having a full cardiac arrest, and you’re talking somebody through CPR, to barking dog complaint, to a critical accident on a major highway that you’re sending multiple types of responses and so on,” she said. “You’re in a constant state of hyper vigilance, because you never know what you’re going to deal with. So your body’s always feeling it.”
If police response is delayed or denied, Hunter said the dispatcher can bear the brunt of push back.
“People are calling, screaming for help, and there is no help available or they aren’t coming,” Hunter said. “That adds to the stress of what a call-taker has to put up with.”
The lack of interest in jobs at dispatch centers is not unique to Pierce County.
Emergency dispatch centers across the country are reporting the same staffing shortages, causing a delay in response and added stress on dispatchers, Heinze said.
She listed a few reasons for the lack of interest in dispatching. The hiring process for dispatch centers is more rigorous than many other jobs, including extensive background checks, screening and tests. The job requires longer hours — 10 and 12 hour shifts — as compared to many eight-hour desk jobs. Heinze said she has seen a significant decrease in interest after companies allowed work from home during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Unfortunately, these are definitely jobs that can’t be done from home. A lot of the workforce today really want to be able to work from home,” Heinze said. “They have access to extremely sensitive information. You don’t want people to be able to just access that sensitive information from anywhere. They need to be able to do so in a confined, controlled environment.”
Some centers have low pay and below-average benefits, Heinze said, but South Sound 911 was ranked as a top employer by the Economic Development Board, offering some of the highest pay for dispatchers in Washington, that starts at $30.28 per hour.
The pandemic has sparked early retirements or retirements from those eligible but hadn’t planned on leaving, Heinze said. The dearth of employees only makes the job more difficult, increasing the burnout rate.
“Once you get behind the eight ball, as far as hiring is concerned, you’re ending up putting more pressure on the current staff to help fill those voids,” she said.
Grady has started bringing back former employees as part-time workers to offset some of the shortage. Eight of the nine part-time employees are former staff members.
“How great is that? They were already trained and don’t need to go through our new hire academy,” she said.
Retention at South Sound 911 has been a worry.
According to internal records, 46 percent of staff have worked less than five years at the agency. The agency saw a 17 percent turnover rate last year, which Grady feels is too high, but remains within the national average of 15 to 20 percent of annual turnover.
With mandated overtime, Grady said work-life balance has been a key issue for staff.
“People want predictability in their life and in their work schedule,” she said.
Hiring has become a top priority for the agency. The dispatch center management has told staff “no recruiting or staffing idea is off the table at this point.”
Last year, South Sound 911 started using some innovative ways to recruit, including a farmers’ market booth, bus advertisements and virtual job fairs. Their efforts have alleviated some of the stress, with eight hires starting this month, Grady said.
The executive director wants to bolster the ranks with a handful of more positions this year to further reduce stress on dispatchers.
“It’s hugely beneficial to the employee if you have the right number of people to carry the workload so you don’t feel like they’re being slammed and just going from call to call,” Grady said.
The job can be rewarding, Heinze said.
“The amount of people that you get to help in a day, there’s just no other job that you’re going to really be able to help that number of individuals,” she told The News Tribune.
If short-staffing levels continue, Heinze worries that centers face delayed emergency call times, offloaded nonemergency calls to a website and fewer services.
“A lot of 911 centers provide what we call give pre-arrival instructions, where we can provide CPR instructions or first aid or other types of instructions, like delivering a baby, In the event that there is just not enough staff to be able to do that,” she said.
In addition to recruiting for the existing vacancies, Grady hopes the board will approve more positions and their recruiting efforts will bring forward more applicants year before the board’s approval in late summer.
“We are addressing it, and we’re doing everything we can to address it,” Grady said. “Having the right number of people to answer 911 calls is something that is critical to public safety everywhere. So not being able to manage the call volume is the concern.”
This story was originally published January 12, 2022 at 5:00 AM with the headline "It’s taking Pierce County 911 operators longer to answer your calls for help. Here’s why."
