Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Emergency Communications topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
FECC briefs commissioners on 800 MHz upgrades, edge redundancy and dispatcher staffing shortages
Summary
Flathead County’s 911 center (FECC) updated commissioners on an 800 MHz radio-system upgrade with ‘edge’ redundancy, a recent regional trunking outage, the APCO operational assessment and current dispatcher staffing gaps; leaders said quotes from Motorola and hiring progress are imminent.
Elizabeth Brooks, representing the Flathead Emergency Communications Center (FECC), updated commissioners on the county’s 800 MHz radio modernization project, recent system outage analysis, an APCO operational assessment and staffing and call-volume trends.
Brooks said updated engineering for the 800 MHz project is complete and the county is awaiting a final quote from Motorola; once received, project timelines and equipment orders will move forward. A planned element of the upgrade is “edge functionality,” which Brooks described as a mini master site that provides local redundancy if connectivity to primary master sites is lost. She said the functionality is not dependent on cell towers and would be housed in the FECC data center; it would act like a connectivity buffer and keep trunking sites and users on-air during wider network outages.
Brooks and county leaders held a risk-assessment meeting Dec. 20 after an unusual trunking radio outage affected much of the western side of Montana. The outage combined a tower failure with a disruption in microwave and fiber connectivity; Brooks said Spectrum (the fiber owner) experienced issues during that event. The county engaged Marsh McLennan for a review and received recommendations to improve redundancy and resiliency.
Brooks reviewed the APCO consulting operational assessment and said the operations board is prioritizing items in that report. She noted some items identified as high in the assessment were not ranked highly by law enforcement interviewees during the APCO process; the operations board is working to reconcile those differences.
Staffing and call volume: Brooks said FECC currently has nine full-time 911 dispatcher vacancies but also has approximately 12 full-time dispatchers available to work the floor, five part-time call takers and two dispatchers in training. She said the department has held multiple informational sessions and testing events and expects offers to go out to candidates soon. FECC noted a decline in total calls for service year-over-year; Brooks said much of the reduction can be traced to fewer 911 hang-ups and improvements to phone-tree routing that reduce administrative calls to dispatch.
Brooks said FECC is completing recorded-data and phone-system updates and has been addressing recording/phone-system bugs that affected some data in spring 2024. She offered to provide commissioners with more granular call-type statistics (for example, traffic stops and motor-vehicle accidents by agency) if desired.
Why it matters
The 800 MHz upgrade and edge redundancy affect emergency communications reliability for law enforcement, fire and EMS. Dispatcher staffing levels and hiring directly influence response capability and whether agencies must change enforcement and patrol practices because of limited detention capacity or staffing constraints.
Ending
Brooks said the FECC will provide more detailed call-for-service breakdowns on request and expected to receive the Motorola quote that will clarify phase timing for the 800 MHz project. No formal action by the board was required at the meeting.
