PORT ANGELES — Clallam County’s 911 dispatch center has been experiencing a staffing shortage for the last four years.
Despite numerous attempts to close the gap, it’s expected to get worse over the next few months.
To stave off this upcoming crisis, Peninsula Communications (PenCom) is adopting some creative solutions: traveling dispatchers and an AI answering system for non-emergency calls.
By the end of February, PenCom director Karl Hatton said the dispatch center is predicted to have only nine dispatchers in a center that can staff 20.
“I feel pretty close to panic mode when I realize how short-staffed we are,” Hatton said.
To help fill some staffing gaps, two dispatcher on demand traveling dispatchers will start in February.
The six-month contract will cost between $290,000 and $370,000, according to a Port Angeles City Council memo.
While the contract can be extended if needed, the hope is that traveling dispatchers will be a temporary solution.
“I look at this as a kind of Band-Aid to try to stop the bleeding while we try to sort this out,” Hatton said. “I’m hoping six months is the right number to buy us time.”
In addition to reducing the burden on permanent employees, Hatton said the traveling dispatchers could free up more resources to allow for group training for potential new employees.
Currently, only one to two trainees can be in the dispatch center at one time due to staffing limitations. But Hatton said the traveling dispatchers could free up an employee to lead a group training session in a classroom.
By the end of the six-month contract, Hatton said he hopes to have brought in at least three to four new trainees. To view the position and apply, individuals can visit cityofpa.us/jobs.aspx.
While travelling dispatchers are temporary, the non-emergency AI answering system is likely to have a permanent place in the dispatch center, Hatton said.
Aurelian AI will only answer business line calls. When people dial, Hatton said a human-sounding system will take the call and collect information by asking questions in a logical order, “like a human would.”
Rather than requiring the caller to press numbers, the system will be verbally interactive. After taking basic information, determining the reason for the call and asking follow-up questions, the system will forward the call to a specific location or notify a dispatcher that a call for service is needed.
If the system determines the call is an emergency, or it hears key words for sensitive topics such as domestic violence or sexual assault, it will automatically forward the call to a human dispatcher.
Dispatchers who receive non-emergency calls on the 911 line also will be able to transfer those calls to the AI system, Hatton said.
The hope is that the system will help reduce the dispatchers’ workload, Hatton said.
PenCom handles about 85,000 non-emergency phone calls per year, he said. Often, those calls have to be put on hold while the dispatchers deal with emergency 911 calls.
Based on testing, it is likely that Aurelian AI can handle about 60 percent of the non-emergency calls without additional programming, and up to 75 percent of the calls with background programming added, Hatton said.
That will leave dispatchers with only about 25,000 non-emergency calls to handle annually, or about 68 per day.
Hatton added that the system is constantly learning and can be adjusted to improve its responses.
“We think it will provide at least as good of service as we do when we answer the phone, without having to put someone on hold,” Hatton said.
The program is quoted to cost about $65,000 for one year and is expected to be fully integrated by the end of February.
“We’re pretty enthusiastic about trying it out and seeing the public’s response to it, and how it manages, or helps manage, our workflow,” Hatton said.
If it works well, Hatton said there are additional bells and whistles that can be purchased to upgrade the system’s abilities.
Both Aurelian AI and the traveling dispatchers likely will be funded through PenCom’s current budget excess, realized through staffing savings, according to a city council memo. If necessary, PenCom reserves can be utilized.
Hatton said he hopes the addition of Aurelian AI and the traveling dispatchers will give the center some “breathing room.”
“The public deserves extraordinary service, which is what they get,” he said. “But it becomes harder and harder to get that when you run out of bodies.”
________
Reporter Emma Maple can be reached by email at emma.maple@peninsuladailynews.com.
