Thursday
APCO Conference Ends With Awards
Telecommunicator of Year award given
New 311 In Chicago Outlined
Site visits: Albuquerque PD, Bernalillo County
sheriff
by Gary Allen, Editor
The 1998 annual conference of APCO is over. The end was signaled by the pounding of the gavel by in-coming president Jack Keating at the closing banquet. But it was still a day filled with activity.
Perhaps the most poignant part was the awarding of the International
Telecommunicator of the Year Award. It was presented to Brenda Cantu of the Washington State Patrol. She was selected
for her leadership and an outstanding trainer. During her acceptance speech,
Cantu said she had intended to become a teacher, but instead choose dispatching.
She credited her co-workers and especially her comm center manager, Sandy
Saffell, whom she said mentored her advancement. In conclusion, she said,
"I challenge each of you to sing the praises of your employees."
She asked them to write a note, say a word, award flowers, or take some
other action to encourage and honor the dispatchers with whom they work.
Another heart warming story was told by Brenda Kasum, line supervisor winner, who said four co-workers had driven from Prescott (Ariz.) to surprise her. Kasum mused if anyone was back home staffing the consoles! Even so, you could tell that she was touched to see her co-workers and friends and to have them present during the award ceremonies.
Also receiving awards were:
Communications Director of the Year
Lynn Boydston, Travis County (Tex.) Sheriff
"She is completely dedicated to saving lives, officer safety and managing
a staff of well-trained emergency dispatchers," said Tracy Hill, dispatch
coordinator at TCS.
Line Supervisor of the Year
Brenda Kasun, Prescott (Ariz.) Police Department
"Brenda has shown remarkable endurance and stamina in the face of professional
adversity," said Michelle Griess, lead dispatcher at Central Yvapai
Fire District. Kasun was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis several years
ago.
Technician of the Year
Lynn Platt, Sarasota County (Fla.) Sheriff Consolidated Communications
"His unrelenting energy, enthusiasm and genuine sense of caring is
always apparent," wrote Debbie Gailbreath, operations manager at SCSO
comm center.
The winners for Outstanding Achievement are:
Telecommunicator
Roger Workman, Wayner County (WV)
Director
Nativaidad Arrieta, Bernalillo County (NM)
Line Supervisor
George Tucker Jr., Chief Dispatcher, Emergency Communications, Inc.
Village of Southampton, Long Island (NY)
Technician
Delene Wolf, Tape Analyst & Technician
Albuquerque (NM) Police Department, Communications Division
Visits to Local Comm Centers
It was time to set out and visit the two major law enforcement comm centers in the Albuquerque area. A nine-passenger van took several APCO members and I to the Bernalillo County sheriff's comm center and the Albuquerque police comm center.
The Bernalillo County sheriff's center is northeast of the city, in a sparely-populated area of the county--it takes about 30 minutes to drive there from downtown. It's housed in the sheriff's northeast substation, named after Lt.William Sibrava, who died in the line of duty on May 27, 1994. It has a very nice view of the Rio Grande valley, although the comm center itself has no windows. The center occupies one-half of the substation and shares a locker room, kitchen, break room, patio and restrooms with the deputies.
The center opened in Sept. 1997 and features indirect lighting, attractive colors and comfortable workstations. There are 15 positions: 4 call-takers, 10 radio dispatchers (both county fire and sheriff), and one supervisor's position, all arranged into pods. They use SCC/Printrak CAD to handle both police and fire-rescue incidents. The have a training room adjacent to the dispatch floor, a computer room, a training coordinator's office and a CAD manager's office. The dispatch floor is arranged to allow the addition of eight additional workstations. An administrative area is adjacent to the dispatch area and the main entrance.
Dispatchers do not wear uniforms, and there are usually two call-takers, two sheriff's radio dispatchers, and two fire-rescue radio dispatchers on-duty at all times. They receive all 911 calls (Motorola gear) and make law enforcement, fire and EMS dispatches. Fire responds to medical incidents, and a private ambulance responds for transport.
They have Motorola furniture, but it's not the usual gray--it's a nicely wood finished. The call-takers work with two screens and the radio dispatchers work with three. They use Logisys roller balls to move the cursor around their screens. They have the mapping module for CAD, which shows the location of incidents (marked with a patrol car or engine icon), street names and other features. The map is used as a visual aid only and is not linked electronically to any other system.
The computer room sports a power room, four Tandem processors, a telephone equipment room, a bank of servers for external links, computer backup tape drive (4mm DAT, performed daily) and both old and new logging recorders. Their current Dictaphone Prolog recorder writes to three hard drives and eight, 4mm DAT tapes. They say they are keeping about three years worth of audio now, and change tapes only every once or twice a week. They also keep a TEAC VHS-format logging recorder and a reel-to-reel machine to play back older media.
Adjacent to the dispatch floor is a training room where they can simulate incidents. And training may be important, since they have 40 authorized positions, but have only 30 filled. Five new dispatchers are in training now, however.
The sheriff and fire-rescue comm centers were consolidated last September, and the employees were brought to this new center. But now everyone is cross-trained, even now.
The sheriff uses VHF radio frequencies, and the center is linked to the radio system via telephone lines. The sheriff, like the Albuquerque police department, will be converting to 800 MHz trunked within a year.
Conclusion: it's a great looking center that--what else?--is understaffed.
They must suffer from the lack of cross-training, and the staffing flexibility
that would allow. But it has the advantage that the facility is new and
that a new radio system is just around the bend.
The Albuquerque police is an entirely different matter. It's located in the basement of a 60's vintage building formerly occupied by the county sheriff. You can reach the comm center through underground parking garage, which astoundingly isn't secured by barriers or gates. Anyone could just drive right in and leave a package containing anything. In fact, dispatchers said the sheriff's intake facility is nearby and that closed circuit cameras are used to insure the safety of dispatchers who leave via the underground parking lot.
Inside the center, the ceiling tiles are in disarray, wires are running everywhere, but dispatchers are going their duty taking calls and dispatching units. They have three different job positions, each considered a "clerical" position in the city personnel structure. They employ 39 radio dispatchers, 42 call-takers and nine so-called NCIC operators. The radio dispatchers receive six months of training, and the call-takers and NCIC operators three months. Overall, they have about 100 employees, none of whom wear uniforms. They work standard 8-hour shifts, from 1430-2300, 2230-0700 and 0630-0300.
They have three open radio dispatcher job positions and one NCIC position. There is no career ladder within the comm center--call-takers must apply to become a radio dispatcher, for example, just like someone with no experience. Pay starts at about $9.62 for a call-taker and $8.82 for a radio dispatcher.
They dispatch about 347,000 incidents a year using SCC/Printrak CAD at 8 call-taker, five radio dispatcher positions, and one supervisor's position. The center is so small that they have shoe-horned in two call-taker positions adjacent to the supervisor's console. The consoles are arranged by twos. They have an EOC adjacent to the working floor.
Prior to Printrak, they had a PRC CAD system. Radio dispatchers handle one of five districts, with each district handling from 40-70 units depending on time of day and special activities. Two districts might be combined when activity is low (night shift) or when they are short a radio dispatcher (like when I was there).
The supervisor has access to radio, telephones, CAD and alarms.
Their incident type codes are arbitrary numbers, much like a 10-code system. But in this case, it's just a three-digit number, sometime with a dash and number attached (247-12). To an outsider, it's impossible to decipher. In fact, when President Clinton visits the city (I was told quite often, 3-4 times a year), the Secret Service requests a Albuquerque PD dispatcher to act as liaison--actually, they just decode the arcane numbers for the agents!
Right now, there is no way to create a multi-agency incident. The Printrak CAD supports it, and both police and fire are using the same CAD software. But the two centers are not linked in a way to allow a police call-taker to enter a police-fire incident and to have it appear at the fire department.
They have an MDT system and use it to dispatch officers to Priority 3 or lower incidents. For Priority 1 incidents the radio dispatcher must use voice, and voice is optional for some Priority 2 incidents.
Of course, all of this will be mitigated by a new comm center, which will be completed next April. Located on the west side of town, the center will bring police and fire (now about six block away) into the same building, but not into the same center. Fire dispatching is now performed by firefighters, whose union insists the positions remain sworn. Some in city government feel that fire dispatching should be civilianized.
Each position has a Dictaphone instant playback recorder and a manual PEI telephone device. Interestingly, they have a television between every-other console. A previous deputy chief insisted on the entertainment to keep the crews "connected" to the outside world, to reduce boredom and to keep the night shift alert. During my visit, all of the TVs were on, although the volume was turned down low.
Conclusion: I have my fingers crossed. This comm center facility
serving over 800,000 people is in need of an overhaul. The software is top-notch
and current (although they don't have the mapping module), the employees
are dedicated, but the facility is a bummer. The new comm center can't come
soon enough.
Here's the 311 Story
What's up with 311? After it's whirlwind start in Baltimore attended by attorney general Janet Reno, it hasn't gained as much popularity as had originally.
Ralph Gould of the Grand Rapids (Mich.) police department gave an update to a seminar during the annual conference of APCO in Albuquerque. He said that California has already written and passed a bill on 311, and that bill (A.B. 1198) could be used by other agencies to jump-start their own legislation. The California bill was focused on reducing the number of 911 being received by comm centers.
Gould said that what APCO's Project 35 on 311 found, that almost every agency was considering a different use for the three-digit numbers--city services, non-emergency police, public works and others. But even so, the California bill recommended that 311 be implemented by all state law enforcement agencies for non-emergencies. The bill did not require any implementation, however.
Gould said APCO took a national survey three months ago of 311 activity. They received a response back from a bush community of 5,000 in Alaska, who installed 311 to help reduce their 911 misuse. "And damn it," Gould said, "if they can do it in a bush community in Alaska, someone's probably going to assume that we can do it in the lower 48."
The first 311 system was Baltimore (police), another is Dallas (all city services), Oklahoma State University, San Jose (Calif.), and Phase I of 311 system in Chicago that goes live on Aug. 15th. Most 311 in these cities go to a live person, but in Dallas the call goes to a recording after a call is unanswered for a certain number of seconds. Most 311 systems have ANI, but not ALI.
"Prices are a little hard to come by," Gould said, "because 311 so far has not been done by itself. It's been done in conjunction with other products, like upgrades to computer-aided dispatch or changing 911 trunks." But roughly, Baltimore reports having ANI and ALI, for a cost of $1.5 million, with $350,000 from a federal COPS/MORE grant.
Bethel (Alaska) 311 goes directly to a dispatcher and is basically a police system, although they'll handle other types of calls. Dallas handles any non-emergency city service on 311 and spent about $500,000 (equipment and network) to implement it (although it was done in conjunction with other upgrades). They have not changed how the incidents reported--they are routed to the city agency for handling and needed dispatch.
Gould said Dallas experienced an 8 to 11% drop in 911 calls after implementing 311. Non-emergency calls actually increased in Dallas by 12%, however. Baltimore's figures were "atypical," Gould said. Their 7-digit non-emergency number was little used before 311. So they had a larger change after 311.
Oklahoma State University (28,000 service population) had a 911 call reduction and an increase in non-emergency calls. They had no costs to implement 311, as it took only a simple change to their on-campus telephone switch.
San Jose had initial costs of $177,000 and yearly costs of $96,000. But he said their telephone system is unlike most other areas of the county. Their 911 calls decreased 11%, and non-emergency calls were up 11%.
"311 is not the same as 911," said Gould. He said to expect a per-call cost for 311. You might also have a cost per-minute if you implement it on a large-area basis. You might also have a cost if the call is over a certain time threshold.
So far the cost per call is being born by the PSAP, Gould said. On the other hand, 311 calls from pay phones are not free to the caller.
There may also be network charges, Gould said, and implementing 311 may require additional personnel. Some jurisdictions are using existing 911 call-takers, others are using new personnel training to handle non-emergency calls. For smaller cities, it makes sense to have 311 call-takers cross trained to handle 911 calls, Gould said.
Barry Luke, chair of APCO's Project 35, invited several government agencies and groups to meet last February to discuss 311. They found there was no consensus on whether 311 is "good."
California is going to test the effectiveness of 311 by comparing call volumes with San Diego, which is going to launch a public information campaign for a 7-digit non-emergency number.
Other News
According to a sample issue of Land Mobile Radio News distributed at the conference, The House Commerce Committee unanimously approved an E911 bill (H.R. 3844) and sent it on to the full House for consideration. The bill includes requiring the FCC to tag 911 as the nationwide, universal number for reporting emergencies, and that federal agencies make property available to site wireless facilities (mostly antennas).
copyright 1998, 911 Dispatch Services Inc.