The St. Joseph County 911 center says it’s in a staffing emergency right now– but, there’s help. Dispatchers are now getting 5% raises across the board and retention bonuses for staying on the team.
Leaders hope paying dispatchers more will help solve some of the problems.
The director says they’ve recently had several seasoned employees retire or move on to other jobs. It takes more than six months to fully train just one employee, so there’s no quick fix for short staffing either.
“It was a good idea to reward people for staying,” said Ray Schultz.
Two years after suffering communications outages that lasted anywhere from a few minutes to as long as 14 hours, Montgomery County’s public safety radio communications system received a major upgrade.
Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich held a news conference Thursday to highlight the features of the county’s $42 million system, which includes doubling the number of radio towers from 11 to 22…
Franklin County commissioners met Tuesday with city leaders from Washington, Pacific and Sullivan to convince them to join the county’s new emergency dispatch center.
Union and St. Clair are using the new dispatch center to coordinate police, fire and ambulance calls, but Washington, Pacific and Sullivan have their own public safety answering points (PSAP). The center is housed at the Franklin County Adult Detention Center in Union and was part of a recent $30 million expansion and renovation project…
—County residents can use the Text-to-911 emergency notification service, which allows people to text rather than call during a crisis. It is especially beneficial to people who have hearing and speech impairments, said Erin Brockus, Ventura County Sheriff’s Office.
Ventura County residents have a new way to seek help in an emergency. As part of the Text to 911 service, they can send a text and reach the dispatch centers of all county law enforcement and fire agencies.
“It is definitely a huge benefit for our community,” said Erin Brockus, assistant communications manager for the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office…
Learn about current efforts to continue to protect the 4.9 GHz Band for public safety as well as recent filings, key decisions impacting these efforts, and how you can support PSSA’s initiative to protect the 4.9 GHz band for public safety.
