ALTUS – Lack of 911 operators prompted the city council to approve a $3,000 incentive for prospective communications specialists.
The decision came at the March 24 council meeting when the council also set a list of qualifications for the 911 positions.
“We’ve moved EMS operators to police 911 and we have a shortage, but that’s not new to us. This is something nationwide,” Altus City Manager Gary Jones said.
Altus has a “long list” of applicants but they’re going through the process of background checks which can take a lengthy amount of time, the city manager said. The city needs “three or four” more 911 operators to complete the employee roster…
THORNTON, Colo. — The difference between a click and a call matters in a dispatch center, and before April 5, dispatchers at the Thornton Emergency Communication Center had to call other agencies to be able to dispatch them, instead of seeing in real time where they were, and clicking to send them.
“So it could take up to one to two to almost three minutes sometimes, depending,” said Brandi Seaton, the Communications Center Supervisor.
The difference between one and three minutes in her job, she says, is “a life”…
One of Vermont’s two state police dispatch centers had to enact portions of its emergency contingency plan this weekend after several employees contracted Covid-19, according to Lance Burnham, emergency communications commander for Vermont State Police.
This was the first time state dispatchers had needed to use the contingency plan, Burnham told Vermont’s Enhanced 911 Board at a routine meeting Tuesday morning.
“We could not keep up with the volume of work that was happening,” Burnham said to the board…
CASPER, Wyo. — Telecommunications specialists at the Natrona County Public Safety Communications Center (PSCC) handled 169,426 phone calls (30,000 of them to 911 calls) in 2021, according to the Casper Police Department. About 90% of them were answered in under 10 seconds, about five seconds faster than the national average.
“We call them the ‘first’ first responders,” CPD Information Officer Rebekah Ladd told Oil City on Monday at the outset of National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week. The PSCC handles fire, police, ambulance, non-emergency and after-hours public works calls…
NEW BLOOMFIELD — National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week (NPSTW) is April 10-16, and the Jefferson City Police Department said they are recognizing and thanking telecommunications personnel in the public safety communications field.
“Public safety telecommunicators, including 911 operators and fire dispatchers, answer emergency and nonemergency calls and provide resources to assist those in need,” according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics… READ MORE
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.
