Audit: S.J. 911 service too slow, too costly

Series of improvements laid out for improving emergency-call responses

Despite some improvement in the past couple of years, San Jose’s fire and police departments still aren’t answering emergency calls fast enough. And when they do pick up the phone quickly, it comes at a cost: lots of overtime.

That’s according to a recent audit from city auditor Sharon Erickson, who laid out a series of recommendations for improving emergency call answering times in a city grappling with both an increasing volume of reports and job vacancies that have proven tough to fill.

In a joint response, Police Chief Eddie Garcia and Fire Chief Robert Sapien said they either agreed or partially agreed with Erickson’s 19 recommendations and look “forward to improving both the current performance and future programs.”

When someone dials 911 in California, the state says that 95 percent of calls should be answered within 15 seconds. In 2017, state officials notified San Jose that it was not meeting the target and must improve or risk losing funding for public safety services. Call answering times have improved, rising from below 80 percent several years ago to just over 90 percent in late 2018.

But, police call takers, who are the primary point of contact for callers, and dispatchers, who send police out to handle emergencies and routine jobs, have put in lots of extra hours to get there. On average, they worked enough overtime hours in 2017-18 that the department could have hired an additional 15 full-time employees. The fire department also relied heavily on overtime.

“Staff we talked to were concerned about exhaustion, lack of time with their family and the resulting low morale,” according to the report.

Rather than rely on so much overtime, Erickson suggested more aggressive recruiting and changing everything from how some calls are answered to who answers them.

Now, around 40 percent of the 1,400 calls San Jose Police Communications fields each day don’t qualify as an emergency. San Jose still allows people who reach emergency call takers to file non-emergency crime reports over the phone. Los Angeles stopped that practice years ago, while San Francisco directs people to the non-emergency number 311 to make a report. San Jose, the au-

ditor said, could also redirect such calls.

Even when residents try to navigate San Jose’s own 311 phone tree intended for non-emergencies, about half the time they ultimately ask to talk to a call taker who could otherwise be freed up for emergency calls, often out of frustration caused by errors and technical glitches in the system. For instance, if someone is trying to reach the California Highway Patrol and asks to be transferred, the audit noted, the system routes them to an office that doesn’t actually serve San Jose.

And if someone gets arrested and wants a copy of their police report, the phone tree will transfer them to the district attorney’s office. But the district attorney doesn’t want those calls; people should be told to contact their defense lawyer or the appropriate law enforcement agency instead, the audit said. And, only a couple of cellular companies — AT&T and Sprint — even offer 311 services in San Jose right now.

Garcia and Sapien acknowledged fixing such glitches is necessary and said staff would begin to look at the issue immediately, but warned that “full implementation may take some time.” And they warned that while convincing other providers to offer customers the ability to dial 311 might have benefits, it could also increase the workload.

The pair also raised concerns about Erickson’s recommendation that the administration make sure non-emergency services are available in languages besides English, calling it a long-term priority. Moving forward with the recommendation now, they say, “will adversely impact call answering times for both emergency and non-emergency calls, as non-emergency calls requiring translation will tie up existing call-taking resources.”

Another recommendation to shift report-taking responsibilities to the city’s central customer contact center prompted concerns that city employees would sometimes need access to Department of Justices resources that they don’t all have clearance to access right now.

“Both the Police and Fire departments value our Communications teams and are committed to addressing these issues with aggressive recruiting, retention strategies, and innovative problem-solving, in addition to the prior steps the city has already taken to address these issues,” Garcia and Sapien wrote.

The pair are expected to discuss the audit at the City Council meeting on Tuesday.