To: Honorable Mayor and Members of Town Council
From: Jack Cauley, Chief of Police
Title
Update: Communications Center
Body
________________________________________________________________________________
Executive Summary
In 2011, the Town evaluated the topic of participating in a regional communications center within Douglas County. At that time, a decision was made to keep our dispatch function within the Castle Rock Police Department.
Sometimes regionalization or partnering with other governmental entities makes sense and is beneficial to all stakeholders. Castle Rock Police and the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office have a good history of working and partnering together. For example, the Castle Rock Police Department has partnered with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office on a number of services including:
• Douglas County Regional SWAT
• IMPACT Unit
• Training
• Property and Evidence function
• School Marshal Officer (SMO) program
• Lethality Assessment Program (LAP)
• Community Response Team (CRT)
Sometimes regionalization does not benefit all stakeholders. In my professional opinion, the participation of Castle Rock Police with a regional dispatch center would not benefit the Town of Castle Rock.
Discussion
The Castle Rock Police Communications Center is located within the Castle Rock Police Headquarters located at 100 S Perry, Castle Rock, Colorado and provides 24/7 police dispatch services for Castle Rock Police. The Communications Center is a 1000 square foot state-of-the-art facility that was recently expanded from four to seven dispatch console stations. It is staffed by fourteen (14) dispatchers and one (1) Communications Manager. Operation costs for 2018 are approximately $1,303,780.
In 2017, the Communications Center handled 84,597 emergency 911 and administrative phone calls and 699,863 radio transmissions. During this timeframe, Castle Rock Police handled 71,690 calls for service.
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office (DCSO) provides dispatch services to 15 agencies throughout Douglas and Elbert counties who contract with DCSO for dispatching services, including Castle Rock Fire and Rescue.
As well, the Parker Police Department provides dispatch services to the Lone Tree Police Department.
I started my career as a dispatcher in 1984 and have been dispatching, managing or being ultimately responsible for dispatch centers ever since. Since I have held my position as the Chief of Police in Castle Rock, my observation has been the Castle Rock Police Dispatchers are collectively the most talented and dedicated team of dispatchers I have had the honor of working with. Without exception, they demonstrate dedication and professionalism each and every day.
One reason our dispatch teams are such high performers is because we hire and train individuals consistent with our organizational values and culture. For example, unique to Castle Rock Police is not only how we provide services but “why” we do what we do. We created One-By-One Policing, which is our “why.” The premise of One-By-One Policing is to serve people one-by-one so together, we can create environments that are safe and secure where people can thrive. This relates not only to how we interact with our community, but also how we as leaders see our roles in creating safe and secure environments organizationally where our people can thrive.
One-By-One Policing is central to the level of service provided by the Castle Rock Police Department. Unless initiated by a police officer, calls for service start with a call to police dispatch. How this initial call is handled sets the stage for the level of service provided to the person needing help.
The ability to attract, retain, hire, train, teach, and coach our dispatchers to provide a level of service consistent with our values and culture is paramount to our success. Participating in a regionalized communications center would diminish our ability to provide the level of service our community has historically enjoyed and expects. In fact, in the 2013 and 2015 Castle Rock Community Survey, police dispatch consistently scored very high receiving the highest ratings of all police services.
Most employees at Castle Rock Police, both sworn and civilian, cite serving the Castle Rock community and our organizational culture as reasons why they ultimately chose to work at Castle Rock Police. We have very low attrition for both sworn and non-sworn personnel. Over the last five years, we have averaged less than two dispatchers per year leave our communications center. None of those individuals left to take a job at another center. Currently, we have one vacancy created by a dispatcher who recently moved on to private industry after obtaining his finance degree. In contrast, we have hired ten dispatchers over the same time period who left other communication centers to join ours. No doubt, we have established ourselves as an employer of choice in an ever-increasing competitive job market. Our ability to attract and retain talent, including sworn and non-sworn positions, is something we value and are very proud of. It is one reason we provide exceptional service to our community.
A Wall Street Journal article dated Aug. 6, 2018 (Attachment A) describes how 911 dispatch centers across the country are struggling to fill positions. Locally, a regional communication center currently has more than 20 vacancies. Understaffed 911 centers creates more stress to an already difficult and stressful job. Ultimately, this stress affects the levels of service provided as well as having negative, long-lasting effects to employee health and quality of life. The article further states, police dispatchers are the linchpin of the emergency response system. They are difficult to hire. The job requires snap judgements on life-or-death situations with limited information. Having done the job, I could not agree more.
Some other key points to keep the 911 center in-house include:
• Local control over operations
• 77 percent of CRPD dispatchers are CIT trained
• Social media, Twitter management
• Attendance at patrol briefings
• Attendance at department events (e.g. National Night Out, Heroes and Helpers, Touch-a-Truck)
• Increase staffing for special events
• Familiar with addresses within Town
• Know officers personally, how they respond, voice inflections, etc.
• Procedures such as records checks over air versus computer
• Conflicts between officers and dispatchers handled in-house effectively
• Traffic cameras - access and utilization
• Callouts for traffic, detectives, victim advocates
• Notifications to Chief and Command
• Dispatchers are skilled in the knowledge of how calls are handled in accordance with the Town’s levels of service
• The dispatchers currently provide additional data and clerical services for the Records Unit
• Exceptional customer service to our internal and external customers
• Keeping our team together within the Town of Castle Rock
• Control over responding to and handling incidents consistent with specific Castle Rock Police protocol
• Dispatchers’ working relationships with officers, command staff, Town of Castle Rock personnel, and the community
• Dispatchers’ understanding and demonstration of the culture and operations of the Police Department
• Internal administrative duties such as dispatch tape requests
• Warrants - confirm, computer removal
• Answering questions from residents about the Town activities, laws, general information
• Ancillary duties
o Digital media requests
o SmartForce entries, officers’ safety, house watches, daily equipment and officer assignments
o Local entries of warrants, stolen items, trespass notices, animal-license tracking
o Administrative assistance for records
Attachments
Attachment A: WSJ article - Dispatcher Hiring Challenge