Clerical-Administrative Local 1549 and its Police Communication Technicians Chapter are pressing for better 911 equipment and adequate staffing levels.

Testifying April 30 before the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety, the union urged the city to upgrade 911 gear to help technicians handle a steadily increasing volume of emergency calls.

The antiquated E-911 system struggled to handle over 11.5 million emergency calls last year, and Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik testified that the department expects 911 staff to field about 12.7 million calls in 2001.

Much of the increase comes from cellular phones, but existing 911 equipment cannot show the location of cell phones. As a result, PCTs must spend critical time locating callers before they dispatch help.

“Today we are calling on the City Council to provide the equipment we need to improve public safety,” said Chapter Chair Cynthia Hill.

“The bottom line is, our workers are only as effective as the equipment they have to work with,” she said.

Current staffing levels are somewhat better than in 1999, when the PCT/SPCT Chapter began pressing for more hiring at the beleaguered 911 operation. A union-initiated program of 12-hour tours and staggered overtime has helped reduce mandatory double shifts.

Need techs who speak Spanish
Yet there are still too few Spanish-speaking technicians, and greater call volume combined with an outdated phone system threaten to undermine staffing improvements.

Many PCTs are still regularly required to work overtime handling the added calls, which tend to increase in the summer.

“Our so-called Enhanced 911 system is in a state of emergency,” Ms. Hill told the committee. Technicians also need ergonomic chairs and updated headsets to facilitate their work.

Commissioner Kerik came under fire for the millions of dollars in cost overruns and delays that have plagued the start-up of Public Safety Answering Center II, which is needed as a backup center in case the system fails. PSAC II is not scheduled to be on line until July 2004, he said.

City Council members were also crtical of the $1 million annual tab the Police Dept. has run up for the California-based translation service where it transfers foreign-language 911 calls. The procedure roughly doubles response time to these emergencies. Mr Kerik admitte that 75 percent of the transferred calls are from Spanish speakers, yet only 17 technicians at 911 are designated to take Spanish calls.