What happens when you call 911?
Here’s everything a dispatcher does to get emergency services to your location when you dial 911.
Miguel Fernandez, NorthJersey.com
Ongoing staffing shortages and policy changes have left the Brown County 911 Center in crisis, for both dispatchers and management staff, employees told the County Board on May 21.
In the past month, three dispatchers have resigned due to a new overtime policy taking effect June 1, dispatcher Brooke Bitters said. Between the three employees, the center lost over 40 years of experience. Currently, Bitters said the center is down 20 employees, and only 22 of the 42 left are fully trained.
With the new policy, dispatchers will be expected to have their phones readily available 24/7 and report in whenever they are called, dispatcher Nicole Topel said.
“We can’t make plans. We can’t make appointments. We can’t live our lives without our job being the center of it,” Topel said. “In what universe is this acceptable?”
Dispatch center supervisor Jessica Skalecki said the possibility of being forced in on days off has always existed, and that the overtime policy was changed in order to delay a previously proposed mid-year schedule change that dispatchers disagreed with. When the schedule change was proposed, Skalecki said it came with a mortifying level of toxicity “and our center became a very miserable place to be.”
The overtime policy change created an even more toxic work environment, Skalecki said, which she blamed on staff actions and comments. Skalecki said staff members have made comments “to refuse to answer their phone, refuse to work, and sending heinous remarks to our management staff.”
“There are people that love their job, and myself included, cannot bear to work in the environment our staff is setting forth,” Skalecki said. “The number of negative conversations, backhanded comments, Facebook posts, room discussions and insubordination is taxing.”
Topel also described the work environment as toxic, noting “the emotions, the anxiety, the fear of the unknown, the micromanaging, the lack of compassion for employees.” She told the Press-Gazette there’s no doubt the current environment is toxic, but it’s “full circle.”
“It’s not just us being insubordinate — we’re frustrated, we’re angry,” Topel said. “Our voices aren’t being heard. We’re trying to offer suggestions but they get brushed under the rug. … We’re not a team.”
What changed in the new overtime policy?
Two main changes exist in the new overtime policy, Director Chancy Huntzinger said, which implemented a process for assigning overtime that didn’t previously exist. Under the new policy, management will use six steps to fill hours, starting with volunteers and the last option being calling an employee in on their day off.
If an employee has to be forced in on a day off, who is called would be determined by who has worked the fewest number of hours that week, Huntzinger said.
The first major change was requiring employees who currently work 36-hour weeks to pick up an extra four hours, Huntzinger said. That requirement would be the third option in assigning overtime, after asking for volunteers and implementing inverses, which adds an additional two hours to an employee’s shift.
The second change was removing “forced 14s,” shifts where employees working 10- or 12-hour shifts are forced to work 14, Huntzinger said, “unless it was an extreme situation.”
“That should never be the norm,” Huntzinger said. “It would be the exception.”
County Board members say dispatch crisis could be ‘a complete disaster for Brown County’
County Board member Patrick Evans said he has a bad feeling “something catastrophic” could happen if the issues at the dispatch center are not addressed. If the center continues to lose employees, it could be “a complete disaster for Brown County,” Evans said.
“Mr. Chairman, this is the communication center. If we have employees just leave us, what does that do for the people of Brown County?” Evans said. “If you call 911 and no one’s there to answer, you got a big problem, right?”
County Board member Ron Antonneau said he is concerned by how long the issue has been going on. Dispatcher concerns were brought up to the County Board months ago, Antonneau said, and “it just seems like we don’t make progress.”
The issue is incredibly complex, said County Board member Devon Coenen who used to serve on the Public Safety Committee, adding that working through the problem is constant and often involves back and forth.
“There’s no way to get forward in a process without respectful and open-minded communication,” Coenen said. “Not everyone’s going to get what they want, but I think that they have been working very hard – the employees, the administration, the Public Safety Committee – in order to move this forward.”
Vivian Barrett is the public safety reporter for the Green Bay Press-Gazette. You can reach her at vmbarrett@greenbay.gannett.com or (920) 431-8314. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @vivianbarrett_.
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