TUCSON (KVOA) – When you dial 9-1-1 in an emergency, every second counts.
But as the News 4 Tucson Investigators told you over the past several years, seconds were turning into minutes for callers to the city’s 9-1-1 communications center.
Back in 2017, the News 4 Tucson Investigators broke the story about dangerously long 911 hold times center.
The following year, Tucson Police and Tucson Fire combined their dispatch centers.
In 2020, the city had a third-party assess the combined public safety communications center…
Ohio’s 911 system is outdated, made for a time period when landline phones were dominant. In many places, you can only call, not text, 911. Pinpointing locations of mobile callers can be difficult. Infrastructure is old.
“911 in Ohio is way behind even the most reasonable of expectations,” said Matt Franke, a 911 coordinator in Butler County, in written testimony. “Our current 911 network still operates as it did when introduced in the 1960s.”
So for almost eight years, the state has studied and made plans to upgrade all of Ohio into a “next-generation” 911 system. That new system would allow all Ohioans to text 911 and improve emergency response for mobile users…
MALHEUR COUNTY — Could 911 emergency dispatch services ever be contracted to another country, such as India or the Phillipines? This was one of the questions that was posed during the city of Ontario’s preliminary budget meeting on Tuesday night when the discussion shifted to expenditures. The reason: The city’s 911 contract with Malheur County Sheriff’s Department is being pushed up during the current fiscal year by about $47,000. It was budgeted at $215,803 for the 2021-22 fiscal year, but is now projected to be $263,739.
According to Finance Director Kari Ott, the city was not made aware of a 26.58% increase to the contract and is currently trying to negotiate with the county. And they aren’t the only ones…
Spokane Fire Department Lt. Brandon Bacon’s base salary of more than $102,000 is already pretty good. It’s almost twice the median household income in the city.
But that’s not nearly as lucrative as what, in one sense, could be considered his second job: Working overtime for the city.
And every single one of them — Thomas, Archibald, Haughton, Heizer, and both Bacons — made over $200,000 last year. In 2021, skyrocketing overtime boosted at least 12 city employees over the $200,000 mark, and every single one of them was a firefighter or fire dispatcher… READ MORE
LISBON — The merger of the 911 call centers could be about four years down the road, according to a study by Mission Critical Partners who presented it to the Columbiana County 911 Emergency Service Committee on Thursday.
Steve Haberman and Brian Melcer of MCP presented the findings of the study they have been conducting on the current system at the quarterly 911 ESC meeting, which was held by video conference on Thursday due to the weather with about a dozen members of the committee present.
The study suggests the county should proceed with the merger of the five county 911 dispatching centers — currently operated at the county sheriff’s office, Columbiana, East Liverpool, East Palestine and Salem. The cost of operating the new joint 911 location would be about $2 million…
Sumter County residents now have access to enhanced Next Generation 911 services following a recent move to further modernize the county’s emergency call management system.
Sumter County’s newly implemented NG911 system represents the latest in public safety technology. The county’s digital transformation to the Lumen NG911 platform improves the delivery of emergency calls and helps reduce response times by quickly and accurately pinpointing and routing a caller’s location, so first responders can better assist during an emergency… 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.
