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Council adds communications call-taker classification to ease dispatcher workload
Summary
To relieve heavy radio-dispatch workloads and create a training pathway, council added a communications call-taker classification that will take non-radio emergency and nonemergency incoming calls and perform EMD instructions; the role can be a stepping stone to full dispatcher certification.
The Eureka City Council on June 16 approved a new "communications call taker" classification to help the 911 communications center manage incoming calls and reduce pressure on radio dispatchers.
Staff and the police chief explained the staffing need: the dispatch center typically operates two dispatchers on 12-hour shifts but often has difficulty recruiting candidates who can complete the full multitasking radio-and-phone training. The new classification targets candidates who can answer phones, create call records and provide emergency-medical-dispatch (EMD) instructions based on scripted protocols. Those call takers would not do live radio dispatching; instead, they prepare and hand off calls to a radio dispatcher.
The chief said the role will require post-academy training and EMD qualification and can be part of an internal advancement track: a call taker who gains the radio skills and completes the full training program could be promoted to full communications dispatcher and receive the corresponding pay increase.
Councilmembers supported the change as a practical staffing and wellness measure for the communications center; the measure passed 5''''0to''''00.
Representative excerpt: "We find that we have people that are very talented in answering the phone ... They can enter the calls for service. They can do the medical piece," the chief said.
