Durham 911 center ‘staffing crisis’ worsens. But there is good news.
Response times to 911 calls have improved, despite a worsening staff shortage at the Durham 911 center that a new audit says is part of a national crisis.
The audit of the Durham Emergency Communications Center conducted in June found the turnover rate doubled from the 2021 to 2022 fiscal years, peaking in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022, as of May 22, at 67%.
The 29-page report by the city’s Audit Services Department reported the rate of employees leaving the center was about four times higher than national emergency center turnover rates of 15% to 20%.
“DECC (positions) are inherently stressful and not everyone is equipped to handle the pressures that these jobs create. In this industry, turnover rates are characteristically high,” the audit stated. “However, a continuously increasing turnover rate might indicate other underlying issues within DECC that might need to be addressed.”
The audit noted the center had 29 vacancies out of 84 authorized positions as of June 3, with vacancies lasting an average of 242 days.
That’s an increase from August of last year, when the center had 25 vacancies, out of 60 call-taking positions, with four people in training, The News & Observer previously reported.
A review of staff exit interviews found that 31% of survey respondents left for better job or career advancement, 27% left because of “high stress/excessive workload/poor work life balance” and 50% of respondents were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with training opportunities within the emergency center.
Despite the turnover, the audit found that the center had made efforts to increase its staffing levels.
The center increased its training capacity so that classes can accommodate up to 12 recruits. Recruitment also improved through advertising at job fairs, rehiring former employees and retirees, making lateral hires from other agencies and having open recruitment through websites and social media, the audit stated.
911 response times improve
The audit found the center is answering calls more quickly, though still short of the standard.
The percentage of calls answered within 20 seconds improved from 81% in July 2021 to 87% in May 2022.
Calls answered within 10 seconds or less also improved, from 75% in July 2021 to 82% in May 2022.
The NC 911 Board requires that centers answer 95% of calls within 20 seconds and 90% of calls within 10 seconds.
DECC director Randy Beeman did not respond to a request for comment from The N&O on Tuesday.
Audit recommendations
The audit made several recommendations, all of which the emergency center agreed with in a memo:
▪ It should continue its efforts to improve 911 call answer times.
▪ Staff should collaborate with Human Resources to reduce turnover by analyzing and addressing identified issues. Staff should use surveys and focus groups to understand why employees are staying.
▪ Human Resources staff should make exit surveys mandatory for employees who quit. Data from the interviews should be shared with staff to study underlying reasons for turnover.
▪ The center should should re-examine the organizational structure of its Training Division to make it more efficient and effective.
Major issues in 2021
The audit follows complaints made last year when the percentage of calls answered within 15 seconds fell from 86% to 78% during the first half of 2021.
Last year, one man reported calling 911 four times with no answer when he saw an armed man trying to open the doors of his car outside of his home.
Some calls took up to a minute or more to answer, The N&O reported previously.
In December, staffing shortages led the 911 center to begin regularly routing calls through the Raleigh-Wake center, The N&O reported. Calls would ring for 30 seconds before automatically transferring to Raleigh.
That program saw about 9% of Durham’s calls sent to Raleigh, and was criticized after some firefighters said it caused dispatching errors and delays.
This story was originally published July 19, 2022 at 5:53 PM.
