Civilians prepare to become dispatchers

Safe call
Civilians prepare to become dispatchers

By Martin B. Cassidy
Staff Writer
March 18, 2008

The town hopes to begin training civilian dispatchers in the next month so firefighters can be freed up to respond to emergency calls.

The training is the final phase of a plan allowing the sworn police and fire personnel who have been staffing the dispatcher's desk to be reassigned to patrol and firefighting duties.

Transferring the responsibility to civilians for handling often-complicated emergency telephone calls will free eight firefighters to respond to fires, accidents and other emergencies, officials said.

"It's very specialized training to handle fire calls, so we would like to get started and work out any bugs in the system we might have," said police Lt. Richard Cochran, who is overseeing the transition.

Cochran said the town will hire three lead civilian dispatchers to supervise the 16 civilian dispatchers on what will be a combined police and fire dispatch desk, and provide guidance if needed to handle calls properly.

The supervisors would earn a salary between $42,474 and $58,654, according to the town. Dispatchers earn between $35,824 and $49,472.

Cochran said one requirement of the leadership job will be a minimum of eight years experience as an emergency dispatcher, a qualification that will hopefully retain town police and firefighters with dispatch training after they retire from their respective departments.

"We're hoping to hire from within the town's work force so they will be familiar with our systems," Cochran said.

Since 2005, the town has hired a mix of retired police officers and civilians who now field all emergency police and medical calls, a move that allowed six police officers working as dispatchers to be reassigned to other duties. They send fire-related calls to the fire department's dispatch desk.

Under the town's civilian police dispatch system, three to four dispatchers work day and evening shifts, while two to three handle emergency calls between midnight and 8 a.m.

Board of Estimate & Taxation Chairman Steven Walko said that the additional firefighters freed up would give the fire department the option to assign more firefighters per shift if necessary, and also will aid in limiting overtime.

"The more firefighters you have out there, there is a potential to lower overtime and ensure our firehouses are adequately staffed," Walko said.

The town once had civilian police dispatchers, but eliminated them in the 1980's after experiencing high turnover and delayed emergency response times. The task was turned over to sworn officers.

Advances in training and standardization of response procedures will help ensure that the new system runs effectively, Cochran said.

"It has worked very well with the police and medical calls," Cochran said.