R2005-34 ACCEPTING PROPOSAL AND AUTHORIZING AGREEMENT

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DECATUR POLICE DEPARTMENT MEMORANDUM#OS-09 Mazch 3, 2005 TO: Mayor Paul Osborne and City Council FROM: Steve ity Manager Mark Barth y, Chief of Police`�� C" SUBJECT: Request to Hire PSTC Consulting Firm to Study the Emergency Communications Center SUMMARY RECOMMENDATION: Staff requests that Council approve PSTC Consulting Firm to conduct a study of and make recommendations for the staffng and operation of the Emergency Communications Cexrter, said study costing$15,550. BACKGROUND: Since 1996,the Decatur Police Departmeut has managed the Macon Courrty Public Safety Answering Point,commonly referred to as the PSAP. It is the location where emergency police, fire and medical calls from the public are answered. The ce�er has an authorized staffing strength of 24 emergency communications specialists(ECS)and four communications cerner supervisors. The center is managed by a communications center coordinator and the ce�ter is administered by the Deputy Chief of Police in charge of the Administrative Operations Division of the Police Department The center has been plagued by a staffing shortage for many years. 'The job requires an employee to be able to do several tasks at the same time. They must be able to listen to a caller,type in important details provided by the caller,place a code number for the type of ca11 and give the call a priority. The employee must get specific and exact details from sometimes lughly excited callers. They must enter the information into a Computer Aided Dispatch(CAD)softwaze application that alerts the proper radio dispatcher. Once a call is eirtered irrto the CAD,a dispatcher must read the detail and send the appropriate public safety units,whether that is police,fire or emergency medical services. Employees must also know jurisdictional boundaries for police and fire responses in the county. Certain radio codes and geographic information must be known and provided to responding units. Employees also utilize the Law Enforcement Agency Database System(LEADS)for errtering lost, found and stolen property. They also enter missing persons,wanted persons,arrest data,requests for national criminal histories by police officials and erner a va.riety of other information into the LEADS system. Employees must also know a variety of entries for conducting license plate checks,driver's license inquiries and vehicle title searches. Employees must know and understand a myriad of policies,both those of the Decatur Police Department Policy and Procedure Manual and the DPD Communicatiorrs Center Podicy and Procedure Manual. This brief synopsis details most of the job description for an emergency communications specialist. As indicated previously,a minimum staffing of four ECSs must be maintained at all times in the center. The center is an area in which stress can reach critically high levels. Callers to the cerrter report shootings, robberies,deaths and fires at a11 hours of the day. Employees also know that their every word while on the phone and radio is recorded and many recordings are subpoenaed as evidence by the court. The employees' every action is open to close scrutiny and second guessing by the various agencies we serve. The employee turnover rate in the center is very high. Since the center is a 24/'7 operation,many qualified individuals hired in the past have left employment due to the assignment of back shift hours,afternoons and midnight shifts. These shifts are not conducive to raising families and after awhile some employees leave in search of a more stable work environment.