9-1-1 Operations at Center of Pickaway County (Ohio) Dispute

Sheriff’s office may merge with dispatchers

In a matter of minutes, dispatcher Julie Meenach answered three calls in the 9-1-1 center of the Pickaway County (Ohio) sheriff’s office.

The first caller had questions about a concealed-carry permit, and next was a telephone-harassment complaint. Both were to a non-emergency telephone line.

The third call was to 9-1-1—A 76-year-old man was sick and needed an ambulance.

Those few minutes alone underscored the breadth of the work the nine sheriff’s office dispatchers do, Sheriff Robert Radcliff said.

The Pickaway County E-9-1-1 Planning Committee (comprised of County Commissioner Jay Wippel, Circleville Mayor Don McIlroy and Scioto Township Trustee Michael Struckman) changed the county’s 9-1-1 operations plan last week, removing the word “sheriff” and replacing it with Pickaway County Board of Commissioners in an attempt to explain who is in charge of the system.

One reason for the change is a recent squabble over training. The county commissioners recently paid about $80,000 to settle a lawsuit over a dispatcher’s error a few years ago that might have contributed to the deaths of two women.

The two elderly sisters died in August 2011 when their car was struck on at an intersection where, about 15 hours earlier, two men had concealed a stop sign in opaque plastic wrap as a prank. A sheriff’soffice dispatcher was fired for failing to act on complaints from two drivers that the stop sign was obscured.

Commissioner Brian Stewart said that when the county started reviewing the 9-1-1 operations as part of a statewide technology upgrade to meet new federal requirements, the commissioners realized there had been no significant policy change in years.

A review of job descriptions and operations manuals followed. David Conrad, the county’s 9-1-1 director, is now scheduling standardized training for both county dispatchers and those with Circleville police.

Conrad said that, as part of the federally required technology upgrade, the 9-1-1 committee has been exploring for more than a year whether to consolidate the city police and sheriff’s dispatching operations under one roof. The committee voted last week to spend as much as $1,000 a day for a consultant to figure out how that would work.

“The new technology is going to be a game-changer,” Conrad said. “We’re not pointing fingers … but the county is just taking a more active role in the 9-1-1 operations because we believe consolidation can and will happen.”

Radcliff calls it micromanaging.

“My concern is that the dispatchers work for me, they work under my commission,” Radcliff said. “I don’t go to the board of commissioners to ask how to train my road patrol, so I don’t understand this.”

Consolidation is something that many counties wrestle with. Delaware city and county went to combined dispatching in 2010. There, the sheriff’s office still maintains its own operation, but it’s in the same room as the rest of the consolidated dispatching in what is known as the Delaware County Emergency Communications Center, on one floor of a county office building.

Brian Galligher, the center’s director, said local officials have to figure out what works best in their community.

“I don’t think the public cares who answers, as long as when they call, help comes,” Galligher said.

Radcliff, who spends about $500,000 a year to operate his radio room, said he isn’t opposed to consolidation but thinks that with minimal renovations, he could bring the whole operation into his building. It wouldn’t require a lot of additional help, he said, to answer the estimated 4,600 calls that came in to the city of Circleville’s 9-1-1 lines last year.

As the study continues, though, the committee has a few other changes in mind.

Currently, dispatchers answer all the calls that come in to the sheriff’s office’s general telephone number. Last year, of 102,354 calls to the radio room, only about 10 percent were on a 9-1-1 line. The rest were to the non-emergency number.

Wippel said that’s not a good use of dispatchers’ time. The commissioners want a phone-tree routing system instead.

But Radcliff said having a dispatcher answer those calls—rather than the calls possibly going to voicemail—helps collect tips, solve crimes and prevent crime.

“We’re a 24/7 operation, and the people expect the sheriff to have someone available all the time,” he said. “That’s what I will keep doing.”