Mayor says Oakland 911 is improving with more dispatchers and shorter wait times
Oakland, CA - 911 wait times are getting better in Oakland, according to city leadership. Mayor Sheng Thao took a tour of the 911 police dispatch center in East Oakland and announced improvements to the staffing numbers and infrastructure.
Last week, KTVU reported residents are resorting to calling the fire department directly to avoid waiting during a medical emergency, like a stroke or heart attack.
Thao addressed the public’s concerns during her tour of 911 on Tuesday, as she thanked dispatchers for their work.
The city reported 65 police dispatchers are currently employed, with 16-inch training and seven more people starting in February. By mid-February, city officials said the dispatch center will only have four vacancies.
"I don’t know when was the last time we had that low number of vacancies here, but that is a huge win for the city, for our constituents of Oakland and, of course, for our dispatchers to help alleviate the load," said Mayor Thao.
The city has revamped their training, which now includes a cohort of new employees to support each other through the journey.
Long-time police dispatchers like Antoinette Blue said she welcomes the rookies, who will have to finish an 8-month training program before beginning 10-hour shifts unsupervised. "We have a bunch of fresh faces with a positive attitude, which is great," she said.
"It takes a lot of patience you have to be levelheaded about the calls that come in," said police communications dispatcher Christina Birden, who recently completed her training last year.
The Town’s police dispatch center has faced criticism for years, as residents complained about long hold times when they call 911.
"We’re a busy city. We have to go call-to-call, back-to-back," said Blue.
Mayor Thao said the $2.5 million grant is going towards mental health resources for burned out dispatchers and hiring more people.
In August 2023, the city reports 36% of calls were answered within 15 seconds. By December 2023, that rate went up to 50%. The state requires that 95% of calls are answered within 15 seconds.
"Is that good enough? Absolutely not," Mayor Thao acknowledged. "We’re going to continue to chip away at that ice block to make sure all residents of the city of Oakland can get their calls picked up when they call 911."
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Oakland residents resort to calling fire department over 911 during medical emergencies
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Bryan Thompson, Interim Manager of Oakland Police Communications, said he handles complaints from the public directly. "I know sometimes the phone is ringing for minutes. It’s because we are actually helping someone else that’s having an emergency," he said, adding that the dispatchers are working "tirelessly."
Last year, the OPD received more than 1.2 million calls, averaging about 3500 calls per day.
Blue said she regularly fields between 500 and 600 calls in a day. "If it is the summer, then we’re looking at 800 to 1,000 calls a day and that’s per dispatcher," she added.
The mayor also said infrastructure improvements were recently made. The dispatch center does not expect a power outage to wipe out communications like it did last summer.
Just last week, Thompson said during an outage that could have threatened the phone lines, the back-up power equipment kicked in.
"It turns out all the systems rolled into play, and it actually works," said Mayor Thao with a smile. "The first year [of my administration] was really about lifting up the hood to see what are some of the things that need fixing, and we have diagnosed the issues, and the solutions have been implemented, and these solutions are working."
Kiona Suttle, the Deputy Director for the Bureau of Services, which oversees the police dispatch center, said the city is still actively recruiting.
"Our dispatchers are the backbone of the police department. Our officers in the field would not be able to accomplish their job without the dispatchers, so our dispatchers are a critical component to public safety," said Suttle.
Records from last year show nearly 1,000 applications for dispatcher jobs were left dormant for months, a problem Suttle addressed as a failure of communication between HR and the dispatch manager. Now, Suttle said they’re working closely with HR and have a list of pre-approved candidates they will work from to fill vacancies. Simultaneously, the city is actively recruiting to expand the list.
She said 40 more candidates are currently in the background-check stage.
"I’m very optimistic that we’re going to see our numbers steady out and that we will be able to retain the dispatchers we just hired," Thao said.
Thompson said he asks the community for some patience as they continue training new dispatchers.
Mayor Thao said they’re going to continue to make improvements to retain new dispatchers and make those wait times even shorter.