Stress Taking Toll on 911 Dispatchers

Ventura County’s police dispatch centers have an emergency of their own--long hours, high stress, limited pay and poor morale.

These factors have combined to decimate the ranks of the women and men who respond to the county’s 911 and law enforcement calls--to the point that some dispatchers are working 80 hours of overtime a month.

Supervisors at the county’s eight centers worry that dispatcher fatigue is leading to slower responses and missed calls.

Suspects in a recent burglary got away because a Sheriff’s Department operator--at the end of an extended overtime shift--just didn’t see the request to dispatch an officer pop up on her screen, said Danita Crombach, manager of the sheriff’s dispatch center.

Diana Johnson, a dispatcher for the Ventura Police / Fire Emergency Dispatch Center, also feels the pinch.

“We’ve been so short sometimes we’ve had to close our second frequency,” she said. “I’m reaching the burnout point. I’ll get through it, but we need more bodies in here.”

Ventura, along with Santa Paula and other cities, has to occasionally take sworn officers off the streets and put them on the phones to meet the demand.

The dispatcher shortage is not quite as acute in Ventura County as in Los Angeles County, where callers to 911 often get a busy signal. But to prevent that, local dispatchers sometimes work four to 10 extra hours a day, for as much as 80 hours of overtime a month.

The burnout among 911 operators is a nationwide problem and is worsening as dispatchers are expected to handle more technology.

One study shows that an emergency dispatch operator must be able to do hundreds of tasks--from answering the phone and operating a computer to telling a child how to administer CPR--at any given time.

At the same time, the number of 911 calls is increasing 10% a year. Many are from cell phones, where the caller has accidentally pushed a preprogrammed button that dials 911. In fact, 40% of the 400 or so 911 calls the Ventura office of the California Highway Patrol gets daily are hang-ups, mistakes or nonemergencies.

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And with a robust economy, fewer people are applying for the $14-an-hour jobs. And the applicants local departments do attract are required to meet the same criteria as would-be police officers--undergoing skills tests, 27-page background checks, psychological exams, medical checkups and polygraphs--and that is just to get hired.

Then it’s six months to learn numerous computer programs, the criminal code, cardiopulmonary resuscitation and a battery of other skills.

In a Sheriff’s Department recruitment campaign this year, only one hire was made out of 79 applicants and months of expensive testing. And about one in four new hires quit in the first six months because of stress, Crombach said.

Recruiting is so tough that Anne Webb, supervisor of the CHP’s Ventura dispatch center, carries applications in her purse to pass out to promising salesclerks.

Even Simi Valley, the only dispatch department flush with operators, is always recruiting, senior dispatcher Marty Mesa said. “Like everyone else, we’re testing and trying to hire more.”

Solving the problems won’t be easy, experts say.

Managers of the county’s dispatch centers meet monthly and discuss the crisis. Most say higher salaries would make the job more attractive, but they have no proof, and police chiefs are skeptical.

“I’m not sure if you paid 25% more that wouldn’t still be a factor,” Ventura Police Chief Mike Tracy said. “To some extent, I think the job has become almost too complex.”

Experts nationwide agree that there is no magic bullet. Ventura County’s dispatch managers are awaiting the findings of a task force sponsored by the Florida-based Assn. of Public Safety Communica tions Officials, hoping for some usable solutions.

But even task force members aren’t sure yet what the results, due next month, will show.

Steve Souder, a dispatch administrator in Alexandria, Va., heads the group and says the solution is probably nebulous, involving scattered improvements like dividing up tasks, simpler computer programs, getting dispatch centers out of basements so operators have windows, better retirement benefits, more career options, better training and, of course, more pay.

“Money is not the only problem,” he said. “There’s got to be a holistic approach.”

The only police department in Ventura County that has turned around its problem is Simi Valley, which has made many of the improvements on Souder’s list.

It has also moved into a new roomy call center with windows and kitchen in the $12.5-million police station built two years ago.

That is a dramatic about-face from the mid-1990s, when the department’s dispatcher shortages ran to 50%, said Lynn Freeman, who manages the center.

Better retirement benefits would also sweeten the job, some say.

Steve McClellan, who manages the Ventura County Fire Department’s center, belongs to a group of fire dispatch managers who want to change state laws to give dispatchers the same retirement benefits as law enforcement officers. A Sacramento-area agency secured such a deal for its dispatchers, and McClellan is hoping to use it as a model.

In the meantime, dispatchers and managers are coping as best they can.

Crombach lost two more operators this week and expects another to quit soon. Her center is already 33% understaffed.

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But the glue holding the centers together is the longtimers who stay because they love the adrenaline rush and sense of accomplishment.

Annette Allen, communications manager for the Oxnard police / fire dispatch center, said it takes a special person to be a 911 operator.

They have to be able to juggle many tasks, handle the tedium of long lulls and thrive on moments of crisis.

And at the end of the day, most take immense satisfaction from serving the public, even if it’s in an anonymous way.

“Many have a hard time adapting to another kind of job after awhile because this is so exciting and fulfilling,” Allen said.