Re: 911:: Ratio of Staff to Population?

December 23, 2003

I am 's neighbor to the south, 2 counties closer to Detroit. Our

population is a bit higher. We staff 40 dispatchers with minimums on each shift

being mids 7, days 9 and afternoons 9. All of our dispatchers are crossed

trained to work as calltakers, LEIN operators, and police radio operators.

Approximately half of our dispatchers are trained to operate the fire console.

Boomer

Afternoons Shift Supervisor

Oakland County Sheriff's Department/ Central Dispatch

Pontiac, Michigan

December 23, 2003

approx 273,000 according to department statistics...

December 23, 2003

We are a Central Dispatch that dispatches all police agencie, fire and

ems in our county. We have a county population of 111,000 people. Our

biggest city having 36000. We have a staff of 22 dispatchers (with 1

vacancy). We have 5 scheduled most days with 4 being minimum staffing.

K

A. Katt

Bay County Central Dispatch 9-1-1

1228 Washington Ave.

Bay City MI 48708

kattm@... (work)

michelle_katt@... (home)

www.co.bay.mi.us

December 23, 2003

This is a tough question to answer because you have to account or call volume

and crime rates. A city/town/muni with low population may average more calls

than a larger city with low crime. I don't think its a matter of just

population.

Mel

Melinda M.

Dispatcher

O'Fallon, MO PD

theclarkgirls@...

mclark@...

December 23, 2003

Here in the county where I work we have a population of 52,000, with 1 city

having 30,000. We have a minimum staffing of 2 with no more than 3 working. We

are also a consolidated center dispatching police, fire, and ems for the whole

county. When we have 2 people working 1 person does police, fire, and ems for

the city that has 30,000 and the other takes police, fire, and ems for the rest

of the county. The second person also answers the majority of the phone calls

coming in. When we have 3 people on, the third person does fire and ems for the

whole county and answers the phone calls.

Dau

Clinton County Iowa Communications

December 23, 2003

The question was what your center's staff to population are, to try to get an

industry standard or average, and to see what is working (if it wasn't working,

your centers would increase staffing to cover call loads). I'm looking for just

the numbers that are in use now for metro/rural and in between to find a

compromise.

December 23, 2003

--- dan911radio@... wrote:

> What's your population and staffing, and is everyone

> working at the same time? Any relief operators?

> Does everyone answer the telephone?

Well, I think Tulsa has a pop of about 500,000. We

have between 15-20 people on at once. We have

calltakers who answer law 9-1-1, non-emergency, and

animal shelter. We answer for the city of Tulsa, the

city of Catoosa, the city of Sperry (although calling

Sperry a city is a bit of a stretch. If you blink

while going through it, you will miss it) and Tulsa

County Sheriff's Office. We have one dispatcher for

each of three sides of town in Tulsa, one dispatcher

who is " master console " whose job it is to make sure

all officers working are in the computer and take

tacticals when needed. One dispatcher who works

service side, for tows, questions, repeating

addresses, etc. One dispatcher for teletype. We have

two dispatchers for regional (Catoosa, Sperry, and

county.) 3-4 people for fire--fire call taking, fire

dispatch. I don't know a lot about that because I

haven't been trained in that, yet. We have one or two

people who answer the original 9-1-1 call and transfer

it to police fire or medical. The medical calltakers

and dispatchers are in there with us, but they are a

private company and don't work for the city like the

rest of us. I think they have 3-4 on per shift. We

have one person who is radio relief so the people on

the radio can take breaks and take a lunch (30 min.)

We hire one over minimum on the phones usually so that

phone people can take a break. Actually, it used to

be two over so that they could take breaks during

lunches, too, but since budget cuts, each shift deals

with that in different ways. On evening shift, we

have a part-timer who comes in M-F and that helps a

lot. And then, of course, we have a shift supervisor.

=====

Kim

I make a difference

Tulsa, OK

If you hear a voice within you saying you cannot paint, then by all means paint

and the voice will be silenced. -- Van Gogh

December 23, 2003

dan911radio@... wrote:

>On a serious note.....

>

>I'm working w/another PSAP to see if we can consolidate...the usual issues are

arising (radio frequencies, consoles, staffing).

>

>I'm trying to see (since there is no " book formula " ) what the general staffing

in many PSAPs is....the ratio of staff to the population served. When I was in

L.A. (3.7 million), we had as many as 85 working on a 3-11 shift in the summer

and as few as 45-50 on 11-7 during January/February...however, some were relief

operators (we did not have all those butts in seats at any one time); 20% were

on lunch/break at any moment). Here in PA, I have a staffing minimum of 3 and

my PSAP handles 125,000.

>

<<<<snip>>>

We serve just the county areas and also dispatch for 4 contract cities

with a population of approx 300,000. We dispatch sheriff, probation, a

small police dept, the county park rangers and animal control after

hours. We have 20 dispatchers, 5 calltakers and 6 supervisors. Min

staffing is 0700-1100 4 dispatchers and 1 calltaker. 1100-0300 5

dispatchers and 2 calltakers. Friday and Saturday nights we normally

have 6 dispatchers and at least 2 calltakers. There is always a

supervisor on duty. We have 3 primary dispatch channels, 1 admin

channel, 1 probation channel, and the animal control channel. All of the

contract cities and the police dept we dispatch for are on our sheriff

channels.

If I remember correctly, we are down at least 5 dispatchers and 1

calltaker. All dispatchers are trained for everything, phones and all

radio channels. The calltakers only handle phones, the probation radio

and the animal control radio.

Hope that helps ...

Mike

--

miked911@...

Mike Derryberry

Dispatcher II

Kern County Sheriff's Department

Bakersfield, CA

Listen to my department:

http://war.str3am.com:7300/

Listen to Kern County Scanning:

http://war.str3am.com:7460/

December 23, 2003

That's a whole lot better than L.A. and here in PA!!

December 23, 2003

The City of Atlanta PD is responsible for 131.4 square miles and is divided

into 6 policing zones. We service 425,000 residents and the over 1.5 million

citizens, who commute into our city daily for work. Atlanta PD Communications

Division " generates " 1.3 million calls for police only service and receives

close to 3 million lost or misdialed / abandoned calls annually.

Our Communications Division has an approved staffing level of 115 employees,

but has roughly 79 current employees. Each of our three shifts have between 20

to 30 employees onsite during a watch.

We have both 9-1-1 call takers and dispatchers. Dispatchers take 9-1-1 calls

for four hours and dispatch for four hours. Call takers handle incoming calls

only.

Each shift is assigned 3 civilian supervisors and there are two sworn ranking

officers, who divide their energies between three shifts.

Kathy

Senior Police Communications Dispatcher

Atlanta Police Communication Division

December 23, 2003

New Yorks numbers are a little outside the curve..but here they are:

New York City Population around 8.2 million ( give or take a few hundred

thousand during business hours) 12 million incoming 911 calls to the center with

4.6 million dispatched runs ( police only..Fire and EMS have separate dispatch

centers) 1256 currently assigned to the NYPD Communications Section of which:

Per Tour (3 main tours per day; 7x3, 3x11, 11x7):

86 fixed positions each tour in Radio ( 56 radio divisions with reliefs and some

non-radio functions requiring a dispatcher such as Ambulance Liaison and Alarm

board operator)

100-120 911 Operators per tour ( 65-85 sitting at any given time)

2-8 training officers for entry level classes, in-service training,OSHA, right

to know training , etc)

Usually at least one counselor from the in-house Employee Assistance Unit is on

each tour ( some shifts have more than one and on some weekends there are gaps

in coverage that outside counseling units cover)

18-30 Supervising Police Communications Technicians (First line supervisors in

911 and radio)

4-8 Principal Police Communications Technicians (second line supervisors)

1-2 assistant Platoon Commanders

1-2 Platoon Commanders

1-2 Captains as Watch Commanders

2-6 Radio Technicians

2-5 Computer Technicians

Building Security Detail:

15-25 Police Officers

1-3 Sergeants

1 Lt

Most operators and dispatchers work 80 minutes on and 40 minutes off during

their 8 hours tour. They can opt for an hour meal instead and then they get at

least 3 20 minute breaks with their meal (plus bathroom breaks " Personals " )

No one works more than 2 hours straight without a break ( there is a Video

Display Terminal law in NYC that prevents it due to work related health issues)

and in regards to some of the other questions posted previously;

no TV

no Reading ( anything)

no visitors ( even on break co-workers cant stand and talk to someone sitting)

no Internet

no food

only water in a bottle with a sports cap allowed.

The volume is high enough that only the people on the midnights really would

have more than 60-90 seconds of time between calls ( average call volume per

tour is : 7X3: 10-12,000, 3X11: 14-16,000, 11x7: 7-9,000)..and no one gets too

excited if the mids read or visit a little ;-)

I hope this is helpful

Jim

December 23, 2003

My towns Population is 18,000 we should have 4.5 dispatchers. Fire

dispatchers themselves and EMS with firefighters

So we should have 1 police dispatcher for every 4,000 in population.

We will have about 20,000 calls this year (includes DB and Admin

calls) so that is 1 dispatcher for every 5,000 calls.

December 24, 2003

And I am 's neighbor to the north, 3 counties north. Our winter

population is just over 20,000 (see the varying population as you follow

I-75 north??) and we have 8 full time and 3 part time

dispatchers/calltakers. We are all cross-trained for police/fire/ems, and