Local officials take stock of E911 dispatch center’s performance

April 15--NATCHEZ -- Looking back on the year since city and county consolidated 911 dispatchers, Robert Bradford has one question: Are we better off?

Natchez and Adams County began the slow move toward one dispatching center on April 17, 2017, and in the months since, Bradford, the Adams County Emergency Management director, said the new system has been thoroughly tested.

From shootings to house fires to school incidents to noise complaints, the last 12 months have thrown a lot at emergency personnel -- and not without incident.

"There have been some bumps in the road, sure, but I think that's true with every new system," Bradford said. "Trial and error comes with progress."

Overall, however, Bradford contends that, yes, the county is better off with a consolidated 911 system -- despite the many "bumps" along the way.

The new system

The call for a consolidated 911 dispatch came after several complaints of law enforcement arriving on scene 20 or 30 minutes after the original call for help was made.

"The reason for the consolidation was to cut down on the time for dispatch to call an agency," Bradford said. "That was the intent. It was also to cut down on money."

Before consolidation, Bradford said the area had two public safety answering points or dispatch centers -- one in the city and one for the county.

Now, at least three dispatchers man the E911 lines every day on four-hour shifts. All the information, Bradford said, is in one location.

"Now everybody is under one umbrella," Bradford said. "The information-sharing can be a whole lot quicker, and the responses are faster than before."

In the last year, the E911 dispatch center received 44,436 calls, 97 percent of which have been answered within the center's 10-second goal.

The average answering time for calls is 4.2 seconds; the longest recorded answer time is 2 minutes and 4 seconds.

"We're getting to people faster, and that's what this is all for," Bradford said. "That's the whole intent of it."

Alongside consolidating the call centers, Bradford said E911 is designed to take every kind of emergency call -- not just life-threatening situations.

"Used to you'd only call if it was a crime in progress or if you were in danger," Bradford said. "Now, you call for anything you think is an emergency."

Noise complaints, reckless driving, verbal altercations -- Bradford said all such incidents should be reported to 911.

"The reason is, sometimes what is not an emergency to one person is an emergency to another," Bradford said. "If you feel like it's an emergency, call us. We're here to serve you."

Bumps in the road

Though overall Bradford said he believed the system to be working well, he has seen many difficulties.

Take the situation on Oct. 1, 2017, when a man was shot and killed and dispatchers received shots-fired calls from five different locations.

That night in one 12-hour period, Natchez Police Department Chief Walter Armstrong said in an October meeting, dispatchers received 292 calls, 123 of which were in reference to the shootings.

The sheer volume of calls that night, Bradford said, was certainly a test to their new system.

A greater problem, Bradford said, was that the telephone service provider for the dispatch center was incorrectly rolling calls to the police station across town instead of to the other phones in dispatch or to the answering service.

"That needed to happen, because we might not have figured out that problem until a much worse situation," Bradford said. "Now, that is fixed.

Another issue the police department found early on, Armstrong said, was that supervisors were not receiving shift reports each day.

"We use those shift reports to get an overall sense of what the last 12 hours were," Armstrong said. "It's a great check and balance system when we receive those reports."

Armstrong said a supervisor checks the report every day to make sure the officer who worked the last 12 hours has not forgotten to fill out any paperwork concerning a call.

Without the shift reports, that check on the system was gone, Armstrong said.

"But we've fixed that, and now we get the shift reports twice a day," Armstrong said. "I see things going well from my perspective. I know there are some areas we can improve on, but I don't see any major issues at this time."

Armstrong said he did not know the average response time from before the consolidated system, as it had been implemented before he came on as police chief, but that his department's current response time in city limits is seven to 10 minutes.

"That's really good," Armstrong said. "It could be better, but that's really good. I think a lot of the trouble that we had was just because it was a new system."

Adams County Sheriff Travis Patten, however, said his deputies' problems with the new system are more concerned with

attitudes than anything else.

"I really think it's a great concept, but there have been some unforeseen hardships that need to be worked through," Patten said. "The main complaint I hear from my deputies is problems with attitude and personality. That's not something I can control."

Patten said though his deputies tell him many of the dispatchers are passionate and patient, some do not get along well with officers.

Patten said this problem has been evident with his deputies since the systems were consolidated, and that though he has seen improvements, the problem remains.

"It's only a few," Patten said. "Some of those dispatchers are the best, the most pleasant you'll find anywhere, but some of them are pit bulls."

Patten said he believes the dispatch's leadership -- such as Bradford and Dispatch Supervisor Catherine Latham -- will aid in fixing the attitude problem.

"I know Mrs. Latham; I've seen her work for the last 15 years and she's one of the most passionate people I've met," Patten said. "We just need that to trickle down. It's got to be more than a job to you."

Patten said he believes it is also still too ingrained in citizens that 911 is only for dangerous emergencies.

Patten said more must be done to destigmatize 911 and encourage people to call when they need to file a report or need assistance.

"If we're going to keep this system -- and I think it's a good system -- people can't dread calling 911," he said.

Though problems still exist, Patten said he still believes in the consolidated system.

"Once everybody has the same compassion that we do, that (Bradford) and Mrs. Latham have, I think it can be one of the best dispatches in the state," he said. "I know Brad and Catherine Latham have the passion to mold this into something great."

Another problem, Bradford said, is the budget.

"We hit some unexpected expenditures," Bradford said. "And we're a little over budget."

These expenditures -- training for new and experienced employees and maintaining and updating the computer system's operating software, among other things -- were not all calculated into the budget last year.

Bradford said he is currently compiling a year-end assessment for the E911 system and will calculate how much the dispatch center went over budget, but at current he could give no specific figure.

This being the first year, Bradford said the budget was an estimate of how much running the consolidated system would cost.

One of the goals, however, of E911 was to cut costs to the city and county.

"We can make the cuts to get back in our budget," Bradford said. "Everything has a trial period. You're going to have hiccups. The key is just to get better every year."

The future of dispatch

With a year under his belt, Bradford said he thinks he is ready for the next phase of his plan for the dispatch center.

"If you're not getting better, you're stagnating," Bradford said. "This next coming year, we're going to work on getting everyone on the same radio system."

Having one radio system, Bradford said, would allow increased communication between agencies and officers -- apprising everyone of an ongoing situation at once.

"Once we get everybody on the same radio system, that will complete the second phase," Bradford said. "We are going to start that in the coming fiscal year."

If all goes well, Bradford said he eventually hopes to put laptops with digital maps in every law enforcement vehicle.

This, he said, would allow every officer to see as a dispatcher sees -- to see where a call is coming from, what officers are closest and how to approach the area.

The long-term goal, Bradford said, is to make Adams County an exemplary emergency dispatch center.

"I want people to say, 'Look at what they're doing in Natchez,'" Bradford said. "I know we have some hiccups right now, but why not here?"

___

(c)2018 The Natchez Democrat (Natchez, Miss.)

Visit The Natchez Democrat (Natchez, Miss.) at www.natchezdemocrat.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.