James Hatchett awaits calls at his desk at the 911 Communications Center in Chehalis in December 2016.
Editor's Note: This story was originally published in January 2017.
In the early morning hours, as many are waking up for the day and starting commutes to school or work, the Lewis County 911 Communications Center may only have two dispatchers on duty.
Those two people must work together to monitor three radios for every law enforcement and fire agency in the county and two phone lines — 911 and non-emergency — for every call from citizens. When one goes on break, the other is on their own.
Both dispatchers and emergency responders say that level of staffing is a tragedy waiting to happen.
“Our concerns have been ignored by management. Our emails go unanswered or the response is that they need to cut their overtime budget,” dispatchers wrote in a letter to The Chronicle this week. “We hope that management reevaluates their priorities before it causes great bodily harm or death to those we serve.”
While it’s a dramatic statement, emergency responders say it is not an exaggeration.
“I can’t imagine you would find any chief in the Lewis County area that would say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s acceptable,’” said Centralia Police Chief Carl Nielsen. “That’s to the point of being scary.”
Nielsen said the short staffing represented a threat to first responders as well as Lewis County citizens.
Chehalis Police Chief Glenn Schaffer said current staffing levels at the 911 center “absolutely could” present a risk to officer safety.
“Any time a dispatcher is going to be distracted away from listening to the police radio, that’s definitely going to be an officer safety concern,” he said. “I have had officers voice already that it is a concern, that they haven’t been heard on the radio.”
Schaffer said an officer recently reported that he attempted to call the dispatch center’s non-emergency line, but no one answered. Schaffer said the officer had to call 911 to get a response.
Dispatch center manager David Anderson, who was the subject of a no-confidence vote by the dispatchers before becoming the permanent manager, said he could not comment on the concerns.
County Commissioner Gary Stamper, the only commissioner to respond to The Chronicle’s call for comment, said the decreased staffing levels are primarily due to turnover at the dispatch center and the time it takes to train a new dispatcher.
“I know the process to actually train someone is six months give or take. There’s going be a lapse in there,” he said. “We have lots of applicants and I know they’re in the screening process.”
Stamper added that he believes Anderson and Lewis County Central Services Director Steve Walton are “doing the very best,” and that they brief the commission regularly.
Commissioners Edna Fund and Bobby Jackson did not return requests for comment from The Chronicle before press time.
The average shift at Lewis County’s dispatch center has three dispatchers on duty, compared to four at normal staffing levels, and five in ideal circumstances, according to information provided to The Chronicle by dispatch staff.
With three on duty, each dispatcher monitors one of three radios for the Centralia and Chehalis police departments, the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office and police in outlying areas, along with fire traffic for all of Lewis County’s fire districts.
The three are also responsible for answering 911 and non-emergency line calls. If one goes for a break, the remaining two must handle radio and phone traffic alone.
“We are finding that at times it is impossible to handle the simultaneous radio traffic and phone call volume now that we are working so short handed,” a statement from dispatchers to The Chronicle reads. “The disastrous and alarming result is missed radio traffic or the inability to answer every phone call.”
According to emails provided to The Chronicle, as of Friday, the minimum staffing level for 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. is two dispatchers, potentially leaving one person in the communications center if the second is taking a break.
If a dispatcher calls in sick, that four hours could extend to six or longer.
Minimum staffing for 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. is three dispatchers, from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. Monday through Friday it’s four dispatchers and Saturday and Sunday it’s three dispatchers, with three dispatchers from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. on those days.
An email to dispatch staff from Spillman System Administrator Patty Marsden obtained by The Chronicle explains the minimum staffing levels listed above, and says, “We have to cut our (overtime) budget.”
According to information provided by dispatch staff, nearly 300 overtime hours are available for the month of January 2017. Using two part-time employees working a combined 150 hours per month, the center cut the amount of overtime it needed to about 150 hours. According to the dispatchers’ information, 70 hours of overtime are available in February, cutting a total of approximately 80 hours of overtime they say is needed to fill shifts to a safe level.
When asked whether the Lewis County commissioners or county staff ordered the decrease in overtime, Anderson said he could not comment.
Furthermore, Nielsen, the Centralia police chief, said he has received no “formal” communication of those minimum staffing levels by 911 or county management, and learned of them only after a call from The Chronicle.
“This is the first I’ve heard about it,” Nielsen said. “That’s obviously a major concern as well.”
On Dec. 20, dispatch staff and their union, the Teamsters Local 252, set up a meeting with another county union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, in an attempt to bring up various concerns with the Board of Lewis County Commissioners.
Commissioners Fund and Stamper attended the meeting but did not participate. The meeting was not recorded or treated as an official BOCC meeting, despite being on the commission’s weekly agenda and being attended by a quorum of commissioners.
Dispatchers brought up concerns including water leaks and suspected mold growth in the center, understaffing of shifts and overtime which they said verged on 500 hours per month.
“Unfortunately, it appears that the only concern the BOCC and 911 management took away from the meeting on December 20th, 2016, was the fact that there is an excessive amount of overtime at the 911 Communications Center,” the letter from dispatchers to The Chronicle reads.
Teamsters representative Russ Walpole wrote to Anderson on Jan. 4 of the union’s and dispatchers’ concerns about reduced staffing per shift.
“If, as it appears, that the County is understaffing the Communication Center in an effort to avoid overtime, then the Union and the Bargaining Unit find the lack of concern by Lewis County for the police, fire and citizens to be unacceptable,” Walpole wrote.
The county is currently hiring for two dispatcher positions. In December, Anderson told The Chronicle that he considered the dispatch center to be fully staffed at 13 dispatchers and a total of 19 communications center staff.
However, dispatchers said that isn’t enough.
“We are losing dispatchers faster than we can hire them and train them,” the dispatchers’ letter reads. “Of the four dispatchers hired in July 2016, only one remains. Another two dispatchers left at the end of the year, and yet another is leaving at the end of this month.”
According to dispatch emails, some staff are afraid to take their breaks for fear of leaving the center understaffed. One supervisor wrote that she would avoid taking breaks while working with one fully-trained staff member and one trainee, to avoid leaving them alone.
“Working with only three dispatchers on dayshift, the dispatchers now have no one available to take their radio so that they can take a break (keep in mind these people work 12 hour shifts),” Walpole wrote to Anderson. “ … The Union’s and the dispatchers’ concern is: only having a staff of three dispatchers between 0800 and 1600 is going to result in the serious bodily harm or death of an officer, first responder, or citizen.”
Nielsen said police and fire agencies are always concerned about staffing levels, but said he did not realize the scope of the problem at the 911 center.
“The official word we get from communications management is they are always short staffed and they are in a hiring process and are working to fill the vacant positions,” he said.
Schaffer said it’s difficult to tell what sort of impact the staffing level will have on an average day.
“We don’t have enough experience with it yet to see whether it’s going to work,” he said.
Schaffer said some area emergency service providers have discussed an alternative to working with the dispatch center, but said they would much rather the dispatch center be in good working order than have to contract elsewhere.
Lewis County’s 911 dispatchers and emergency service providers have expressed concern about the E911 Communications Center’s leadership and operations since 2015.
In early 2016, David Anderson was hired as an interim 911 manager after the commission fired his predecessor, Craig Larson.
After a few months on the job, local police and fire protection agencies began expressing concern about Anderson’s ability to do the job and about the operations of the center.
Anderson and former commissioner Bill Schulte brushed off those comments as “hogwash,” and “bull—,” respectively.
Dispatchers at the center took a majority vote of no-confidence in Anderson not long after.
In October, Lewis County announced that Anderson was hired permanently after a months-long hiring process for the 911 manager, despite the vote of no-confidence and continuing concerns from emergency responders, some of whom were not included in the hiring process despite requests to help.
Lewis County Central Services Director Steve Walton dismissed dispatchers’ concerns after Anderson’s hiring and their vote of no confidence as “meaningless” because it wasn’t signed by dispatchers.
