With over 100,000 telephone calls pouring in to the DeKalb County (Geo.) 911 center and one-third of dispatcher job positions unfilled, officials say dispatchers must work overtime to handle incidents and often don’t get bathroom breaks. Over 300 people applied to fill the vacant job positions, officials say, but it could take several months to process the applications, test, hire and train 38 new dispatchers and supervisors. A news account says six dispatchers were disciplined during a recent one-month period for various offenses, including arriving at work late. Read more about the staffing problems here.
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DeKalb County is a mess. Yes there are problems with communications, but the leadership of the county and all fronts are very disorganized. Over the last two years, the chief of police had a series of scandals with travel to allegedly recruit for police officers from the Dallas and Houston area. This chief was removed by the county’s CEO with a drawn out process.
This is the same county where in the last decade the sheriff was found guilty of murder of killing the newly elected sheriff.
I think that DeKalb County needs to be torn down and begun new again.
16 weeks of training??? No wonder there are problems. My agency’s basic academy is 16 weeks, followed by 12-months of OJT w/a trainer.