Orleans Parish Communication District seeks $28.8M as call volumes rise; rolls out AI Spanish translation

The Orleans Parish Communication District requested $28,768,156 in the City administration's ordinance submission for 2026 and told the City Council budget committee on Oct. 15 that the district faces continued staffing vacancies, aging equipment and rising demands on 9-1-1 services.

Executive Director Carl Fasshold told the committee OPCD has 15 vacancies in operations (10 call-takers, three dispatchers) and additional support vacancies. He said the district has largely completed cross-discipline supervisor training, is seeking ACE and CALEA accreditations, and is beginning production implementation of two-way AI Spanish translation for call handling.

OPCD officials said the agency is nearing completion of its fire station alerting system testing and deployment and that the Roman Capitol Building on the OPCD campus was rehabilitated using FEMA funds after Hurricane Ida, returning office space to relieve overcrowding.

Why it matters: OPCD handles citywide emergency communications for police, fire and medical services. Fasshold said 9-1-1 call totals fell after COVID but have climbed since; the district must replace end-of-life systems that support public records fulfillment, telephony and operations visibility or risk slower public-records responses and degraded dispatch situational awareness.

Key details

- Budget request and revenue mix: Fasshold said the district's ask, as submitted in the administration's ordinance, totals $28,768,156. The district anticipates $6.5 million from 9-1-1 fees and expects roughly $22 million to be requested from the City general fund. He said 9-1-1-fee revenue has been flat or falling as landlines decline and carriers interpret prepaid-fee legislation differently; OPCD has a case open with the state auditor over carriers' interpretations.

- Staffing and recruiting: OPCD is recruiting aggressively. Fasshold said a posting for an ECS (Emergency Communications Specialist) drew 158 applicants within 24 hours and the agency plans a December academy to onboard 10'12 new hires depending on vacancies. He said the agency has reduced turnover since earlier in 2024 but still loses more staff than desired for reasons often unrelated to workplace conditions.

- Technology and one-time needs: Fasshold described several systems at or near end of life: the NICE system for public-records audio/CAD retrieval, Cisco telephony switch, and the dispatch operations video wall deployed in 2012. He characterized replacement requests as one-time needs to maintain critical functionality and said not having functioning operations displays would materially hamper supervisors' situational awareness.

- Translation and accessibility: After a call where an interpreter dropped mid-call, Fasshold said OPCD is rolling out two-way AI Spanish translation to allow immediate bilingual interaction before a human interpreter is connected; one-way transcription of caller speech is available in 82 languages in the district's Carbine telephony system. He emphasized, however, that two-way AI capability is limited to Spanish at rollout.

- Performance and goals: Fasshold said the district exceeded the NENA answer-time recommendations (90% of 9-1-1 calls answered within 15 seconds) in three of the last six months and aims to reach those standards consistently by achieving full staffing. He listed accreditation, completing fire-station alerting, and improving retention among next-year goals.

What OPCD asked the council to note: that growth in visitor-related calls (rough estimate 30—0% of utilization) and limits in 9-1-1 fee revenue create a structural funding challenge; Fasshold said peers are discussing statewide 9-1-1-fee increases and ideas such as modest targeted taxes (hotel occupancy/special-event fees) to capture visitor contributions.

Ending: Fasshold closed by thanking the committee for last year's payroll support and emphasizing the agency's goal to finish its capital projects and hit operational standards by the end of the budget year.