A legislative hearing at the Capitol this week focused on staffing shortages in law
enforcement, looking at county jurisdictions in particular.
One place staffing shortages are being felt acutely across the state in 9-1-1 emergency
call centers among dispatchers.
One has led to the shortages and what can be done about it.
We turn to Columbia County Sheriff Roger Brannner, who testified at the Capitol, and
Sheriff, thanks very much for being here.
You're welcome.
Glad to be here.
So describe the shortage of dispatchers in your county.
Yeah, I think we're consistent with the rest of the 9-1 PSAP dispatch centers across
the state.
There's been a struggle to get qualified dispatchers in the door and get them trained.
In our county, we're four short.
We've been four to five short for just over a year and a half, which puts a great strain
on the other dedicated dispatchers that are currently there.
Yeah, indeed.
Now, I read that the pay is between about $50,000 and $70,000 a year.
Why is it hard to fill or retain these positions?
Is it that the pay cannot make up for the stress of the job?
Well, I think it's a combination of both, you know, most dispatchers around the area
are going to be making around that $25, $26 an hour, you know, which is not a bad paying
job, but you're working nights, weekends, holidays.
It's not Monday through Friday's ship work.
These are long hours, very stressful.
You know, if you can just imagine, you know, taking that call from that mom whose young
child is not breathing or from a car accident or a domestic, you know, or a sexual assault,
there's a lot of stressful calls.
These dispatchers are the ones that answer that call to get the first responders to that
scene.
And so with a shortage, in addition to that, they're working a lot of overtime hours?
Oh, absolutely.
I know dispatch centers across the state that have contracted with other dispatch centers.
I know one county where the sheriff is actually dispatching at night because they're so short.
Our dispatchers are working a lot of overtime.
It's nothing for them to work 20 extra hours in addition to their 40 hours a week.
What does a shortage of dispatchers mean for emergency response in your community and others?
Yeah, we've been able to backfill it with our dedicated men and women in our dispatch
center.
But the fear across the state and in our county, especially is when they burn out and they
leave and we get any shorter, we're going to struggle with having someone answer that
call for service.
When someone calls for that immediate need of fire EMS or law enforcement, you know,
we need a proper timely response, we need a trained dispatcher to gather all the adequate
information to get the right first responders there.
And if they're tired, if they're calling in sick and we don't have the staff to sit in
that dispatch center, there's going to be a delay in first responder services, which
is a public safety issue.
So how frightening for you is that as the lead law enforcement official in your county
to be worrying about emergency response times?
Oh, it's critical.
This has been our number one focus in our county for about the last year.
There's no question.
There's a shortage of qualified law enforcement officers that work the street.
Our jailers and our county jails, many county jails are not at full staff.
But our dispatch center, they have to be there.
They have to answer that call for service.
They just have to.
We have to have someone sitting in those chairs and there cannot be a delay.
Seconds truly make a difference when you're calling for assistance.
What are some of the solutions being looked at?
Well, not currently specifically, we really did an adjustment of pay.
We did some premium incentives for working at night and on weekends.
We have done some other financial type of incentives.
So if you're here a year, three years, five years, you get a bonus.
We have changed the hours.
One unique thing with us is we just consolidated the Wisconsin Dells Police Department Dispatch
Center, which was about a million dollar project and we had to increase our space up
there, our dispatch stations, the equipment, update them.
So that was a big project because Wisconsin Dells area is busy in the summer time, especially.
But actually all 12 months out of the year now, so we've given them more help.
We've increased some of the little things up there as crazy as it sounds.
We got them a treadmill.
We started some yoga classes here.
We do a lot of stress management with helping them cope with the stress of taking these
calls because our dispatchers work 12 hours a shift and that's a long time to be sitting
there and they don't get the opportunity like so many other workers to get up and walk around
to move around to leave the station and go get fresh air outside.
They have to stay close to that radio at any given second that emergency could happen.
What a hard job.
Sheriff Roger brandner.
Thanks very much.
You're welcome.
Thank you.
Well, some day, not that they need the distraction, but we'd love to come take a look at what
that job is like.
Oh, you're absolutely welcome.
We've had our local media here.
We can get you up in that dispatch center and it's really interesting.
We have five stations.
It's like an air traffic controller out there on these screens to look at.
Yeah, absolutely.
Great.
Well, thank you for your time on this today.
It's really important.
Absolutely.
Thank you for the time.
Appreciate it.
Okay.
Bye.