Audit: Palo Alto dispatch answers 9-1-1 quickly but dispatch-processing lags NFPA benchmark

Kate Murdock, the city auditor, presented the Office of the City Auditor—s dispatch center assessment to the Policy and Services Committee at the Sept. 9 meeting, describing staffing, call processing, emergency medical dispatch (EMD) coding, and training.

The report said Palo Alto—s public safety answering point (PSAP), run by the Palo Alto Police Department communications division, answered more than 99% of 9-1-1 calls within 10 seconds, exceeding National Emergency Number Association (NENA) goals. But the report found a shortfall on a National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) call-processing benchmark: the PSAP dispatched 68% of calls within 90 seconds in 2024 compared with the NFPA metric of 90%.

The nut graf: the assessment highlights strengths in call-answer speed and dispatcher training while flagging opportunities to improve end-to-end call-processing speed and general-call quality assurance. Committee members and staff discussed next steps, including prospective tracking against NFPA metrics, potential additional staffing to permit internal QA, and continuing third-party EMD review. The committee voted to forward the auditor—s presentation to the full City Council.

The report and committee discussion: Murdock told the committee the assessment was not a financial audit but an information-focused review requested by the city, the police and fire departments. She said the city—s single, 24-hour PSAP handled more than 145,000 calls in 2023 and serves multiple service lines, including police, fire, utilities and Stanford University.

On staffing, the auditor—s office reported that the PSAP—s budgeted headcount of 20 dispatchers is in line with industry guidance but that the center often could not fill all budgeted positions. At the time of the assessment the PSAP had 17 dispatchers. The committee heard that the city—s agreement with the Service Employees International Union requires minimum staffing of four dispatchers between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. and three dispatchers between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m.; using the cited staffing guidelines, the auditor—s office concluded the city needs 20 funded dispatchers to meet that minimum.

On call processing, Murdock said Palo Alto exceeds NENA call-answer standards but that call-processing time is an area for improvement: the NFPA metric for fire-related call processing (dispatch within 90 seconds) was met for 90% of calls by the NFPA standard, but Palo Alto achieved a 68% dispatch-within-90-seconds rate in 2024. The auditor—s report notes the NFPA processing metric is not currently an adopted performance goal for the PSAP but was raised by the Fire Department for benchmarking.

Lindsay Moore, the police department—s public safety communications manager, described how duplicate calls are handled: “Usually, if a dispatcher takes a call ... it—ll create a duplicate. As soon as it—s duplicated, they—ll duplicate-cancel it, so it—ll smush all the information into one call.” Moore said the center has procedures for duplicates but acknowledged stakeholders suggested improvements.

On emergency medical dispatch (EMD), the auditor—s office found that all dispatchers had EMD training and that third-party review begun in 2024 showed the vendor—s score met standards. The auditor—s sample testing found coding errors where some calls coded as not applicable (NA) should have been coded as EMD; among sampled NA-coded calls, the auditor reported about 70% should have stayed NA and 20% should have been coded as EMD. Murdock and PSAP management said they now review NA-coded calls for coaching and that coding accuracy had improved from 2023 to 2024.

Quality assurance and training: the report notes a formal QA program exists for EMD calls but not for general call processing (utility, animal control, nonemergency calls). Moore said supervisors provide hands-on coaching while working shifts but do not currently have bandwidth for a formal QA program for all call types. Committee members pressed whether meeting NFPA processing metrics would require additional staff or accreditation; staff said prospective tracking of call-processing metrics is feasible and that reaching NFPA accreditation would likely require additional resources and stronger internal QA processes.

Next steps and committee action: staff and committee members discussed prospective tracking against NFPA metrics, formalizing EMD procedures, adopting dispatcher-level performance goals, and whether additional full-time-equivalent (FTE) staffing is required to support internal QA. Murdock suggested the city might consider a staffing-utilization assessment and further stakeholder engagement on dispatch needs. The committee voted to recommend forwarding the auditor—s presentation of the dispatch center assessment to the full City Council; the motion carried on a recorded three-member vote (see actions array).

Ending: The discussion concluded with committee members thanking the dispatch staff for their work and with staff noting that the PSAP has peer-support and wellness resources for dispatch employees and that a move to a new public safety facility was expected to improve the workplace environment.