Dispatcher Details Job To Pittsfield Police Advisory Committee
Scott Connors answered questions about the Police Department's dispatchers at Monday's Police Advisory Committee.
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PITTSFIELD, Mass. — If an employee at Dunkin' Donuts messes up, somebody gets the wrong coffee. If police dispatcher does, somebody could die.
Yet, they both get paid about the same, Dispatch Supervisor Scott Connors told the Police Advisory Committee on Monday.
Connors addressed the committee as part of an ongoing series in which units from the department talk about their jobs. The committee had already heard from the drug unit, gang unit and school officers.
When asked if he could do one thing to improve the job, Connors said he'd like to raise the pay level to reduce a 50 percent turnover rate.
"It's not an easy job. It's a very stressful one," Connors said.
He compared it to being an "air traffic controller" in keeping track of and dispatching the Fire and Police departments and ambulance services to 911 calls, prioritizing the calls and researching as much information as possible to help keep the responders safe prior to them getting to the scene.
The majority of the 911 calls are from "hysterical people" and dispatchers need to find out where they are and exactly what problem they are having. From there, dispatchers research to see if parties involved have outstanding warrants or could be dangerous and relay that information to first responders.
"We do all of that background stuff and we have that before they get to the call or right when they get to the call," Connors said, telling a story of a time a dispatcher was on the phone with a woman calling in a domestic dispute and with yes or no questions relayed to the officers that the suspect had weapons in the home and what types of weapons. "Officer safety is the biggest thing for us."
Dispatchers have to be able to talk on the phone, dispatch over the radio, type in information and to coordinate with other dispatchers all at once. Meanwhile, they need to maintain calm and talk the caller through the situation.
"You have to be able to multitask," Connors said.
The employees must memorize the streets and, prior to employment, pass a 200-street navigation test to prove they know how to send officers the quickest way to a scene. They also need to know businesses for those callers who do not know the street itself and to assess situations on the spot. And each department — Fire, Police and ambulance — has its own protocols, jargon and supervisors that the employees have to answer to.
There is a required three-month training program and each year dispatchers have to go through a 16-hour refresher course, usually offered in Springfield.
But even with all the responsibility and stress, Connors says he loses employees the most because of the $13 per hour starting pay. The average dispatcher pay statewide is $17 an hour.
"We pay Dunkin' Donuts wages," Connors said.
The majority of the employees are college students working their way through school or future police officers. The position is eyed as a temporary job for the most part. His one wish is to increase pay so that he doesn't have train new employees so often and can hire people who want to make it their career.
"We are working with the mayor to get our salaries up," Connors said.
The committee has been receiving briefings from various departments to learn the peaks and valleys of each department. It was formed to research grants and policing needs, and weigh priorities for the department.
That's already paying off as Police Chief Michael Wynn said a
crime analyst discussed during the gang task force's presentation has been placed in next year's buget thanks to the committee's advocacy.
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