Officials discuss dispatch center concerns

BANGOR – Penobscot Regional Communications Center dispatchers work in a “dark hole” and under difficult, high-stress conditions that have contributed to turnover that far outstrips national levels, Penobscot County officials were told Tuesday.

“There are a lot of things we need to start planning,” Penobscot County Commissioner Peter Baldacci acknowledged during Tuesday’s commissioners meeting after receiving two reports detailing the state of the dispatch center.

The assessments came as part of information requested by the commissioners who last fall wanted more details to justify a request to add three dispatchers to the center that dispatches police, fire and other emergency personnel for nearly all of the county.

Drafted by Chip Briggs – the center’s interim director and one of only two remaining original dispatch employees from when the center opened in 1997 – the reports indicated that the PRCC is understaffed and has a difficulty retaining and employees. More than half the employees have left in the past eight years the center has been up and running, compared to the national turnover figure of 20 percent, Briggs told the commissioners.

Although some left because of scheduling conflicts, medical reasons and some were terminated because of job performance, dispatchers who left the PRCC also cited working conditions or better pay elsewhere as reasons for moving on.

Included in one of the reports were candid e-mails from the dispatchers who work in the windowless basement of the 3rd District Court in Bangor.

One dispatcher recommended that the commissioners make an extended visit to the basement operations, which has been described by dispatchers as dark and lacking amenities needed in a 24-hour dispatching center.

“I think the county commissioners need to come down here, into the dark hole that we call dispatch, on a snowy Friday evening between 15:00-18:00 and be forced to sit with us,” wrote the dispatcher.

Commissioner Tom Davis said he welcomed those and other comments.

“I find no fault with that,” Davis said. “I appreciate that.”

Center officials said that stress also could be a factor prompting dispatchers to burn out. The center is short-staffed by two dispatchers – three if one considers the new position added this year – at a time when calls are increasing.

The number of police, fire and emergency incidents handled by the dispatch center rose by more than 14 percent from 2004 to 2005. Dispatchers handled nearly 68,000 incidents, in addition to other duties such as tracking warrants and court orders and doing criminal history checks.

Dispatchers also cited lack of incentives to do better, such as performance-based pay increases or other recognition, and Briggs said some dispatchers want to “feel a sense of belonging.”

Dispatchers in December had signed on to a three-year contract ending nearly a year operating a contract, but dispatchers have said that a 2.5 percent increase in each year is offset by rising insurance and other costs.

The commissioners said they are taking note of the concerns and issues raised by the reports.

“There’s light at the end of the tunnel,” Davis said.

The commissioners had discussed moving the dispatch center into existing district court space upstairs, but with the district court, county and nearby Penobscot County Courthouse cramped for space, that may have to wait several years when a new combined courthouse is built.

But at least one dispatcher, in an e-mail, questioned the county’s follow-through.

“I know there are promises in the future, promises do not keep dispatchers,” the dispatcher wrote.