Sandoval County’s new public safety dispatch center is still getting up to speed, its director said Tuesday.
Yvonne Fox, who heads the Public Safety Emergency Communications Center of Sandoval County (PSECC), said the center doesn’t have the staffing level it needs to provide the service it wants to without compromise.
She said the PSECC, which opened July 1, is providing that service, but at the cost of employees putting in substantial overtime.
Fox spoke at the Public Safety Emergency Communications Center of Sandoval County Governance Board meeting. That organization oversees the dispatch center, which serves the county’s unincorporated areas, towns and villages.
Fox said staff started without accurate call volume data from Rio Rancho, whose dispatch center had served the entire county. She said that system made it difficult to tell where calls should be routed.
Also, Fox said, the FBI has changed the way data is entered into the National Crime Information Center system, which is how authorities determine whether detained individuals have warrants for their arrest.
“We didn’t anticipate that would be so time-consuming,” Fox told the board.
She said training is an extensive process, and that some staff members received live-call training as the center started operations. She said when the FBI mandate its changes that meant new training for staff.
The current dispatch center has eight seats. Fox said. She and Deputy County Manager Eric Masterson said their long-term goal is to see the space expanded with a new 15-seat dispatch center, with the current center used for training.
Fox said the center continues to hire, with two staff members starting work Monday and two more coming on within a couple of weeks. She said she’d like to have enough staff to have workers concentrate on 911 or non-emergency calls.
County Manager Wayne Johnson said the dispatch center wasn’t able to hire a full staff before opening, and it’s difficult to hire and retain dispatchers, so Fox’s request isn’t out of order.
When the PSECC first opened, it wasn’t ready for all the functions it was supposed to perform, leaving Rio Rancho dispatchers to pick up most calls.
Johnson said last month that the new dispatch center was now fielding all 911 and non-emergency calls within its jurisdiction.
Masterson publicly thanked Rio Rancho for its assistance while the issue was being fixed and said the relationship between the two entities is strong and growing. He said the center still lacks an assistant director, and that position will be filled after Fox establishes a job description.
Masterson said MCM Consulting Group is helping with a mapping and address identification project in Corrales and will help with improving radio communications in rural parts of the county.
Also at the meeting, board members discussed whether the PSECC should establish its own set of legislative priorities and infrastructure capital improvement plan.
Corrales Mayor Jim Fahey, who chairs the board, said he believes classifying public safety dispatchers as first responders and police members under the Public Employees Retirement Act, which county commissioners advocated for last week, is a worthwhile idea.
Johnson said he encourages other local entities to make that issue a legislative priority.
The board’s next quarterly meeting is tentatively scheduled for Feb. 17.