On July 16, workers in the District’s 911 call center received an email announcing changes were coming. Problems staffing the center meant there would be mandatory overtime, even on scheduled days off, and any additional leave would be restricted until October.
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“No matter how much I’d love to have us working on a beach in Hawaii for 2 hours a day getting paid for 12, I can’t do it,” wrote Cleo Subido, the interim director of the D.C. Office of Unified Communications (OUC). “WE HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO THIS DISTRICT AND IT’S PEOPLE.”
District officials are concerned that the frequent use of leave by center workers, which can result in 12-to-16-hour shifts for those on duty, is wearing out workers and could result in dire consequences. Workers, meanwhile, are asking for more support services to help them cope with a stressful job that has been made more difficult by the pandemic.
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“I’ll be honest, if I’m calling 911 on someone’s 15th hour of a 16-hour shift, I am concerned,” D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) , the chair of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, said at a June 11 budget oversight hearing that included the OUC. “We need to get very urgent about this,” he later added.
In Subido’s email, she noted a case where a radio channel was not answered for four minutes. Subido, through an agency spokesperson, declined to be interviewed, and city officials would not elaborate.
Chris Geldart, the District’s deputy mayor for public safety and justice, said in a statement that the OUC plans to hire another 10 call takers next month before additional recruitment in the fall. His office did not answer questions about whether there had been errors by 911 staff.
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In a statement, Geldart said the “OUC remains committed to answering the call in times of crisis and we will continue to work with 911 operations staff and supervisors to ensure they are well-trained and ready to assist.”
Subido’s email was first reported by the Statter911 blog, which reports on firefighting and emergency services. City officials later provided a copy to The Washington Post.
Subido said in her email that the staffing issue centers on the use of leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which allows workers to call out at the last minute. In the past, that uncertainty has led to managers calling for voluntary overtime workers. But with the continuance of the issue, Subido is taking the next step of restricting leave.
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“This is not done lightly, but we run an emergency agency here and I cannot tolerate being short and risking the safety of the public and responders. Period,” she wrote in that email. “I have never had to do this in any agency because I have never seen more than 5% of staff out on so much leave.”
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Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) appointed Subido, who has more than three decades of experience in the field, in January to fill the spot of Karima Holmes, who led the agency for five years. When asked during a news conference Wednesday whether Subido was in the running for the permanent role, Bowser declined to comment on the recruitment process.
“We are still searching for a new director,” Bowser said earlier in the news conference. She added that OUC workers were “some of the most stressed employees in D.C. government” when she was first elected.
A teenager was drowning. 911 sent help to the wrong place.
When a resident calls 911, they first talk to a universal call taker, who is the resident’s connection with the agency. That call taker receives a range of calls, from life-threatening emergencies to smaller issues. Once the call taker verifies the person’s address, that information is sent electronically to the dispatcher, who then explains to the first responders where to go and what happened. A call can range in time from answer to dispatch depending on priority level, a spokesperson for the OUC said.
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For employees, the nature of the daily work — regular shifts consist of 12 hours of constantly switching from high-intensity calls to low-pressure ones — can be draining. Debbie Knox, the head of the union that represents the call takers, defended her members at the June hearing.
“Yes, my members do use a great deal of FMLA,” Knox said. “If management is not going to look out for our well being, then we must find a way to do so ourselves.”
During the hearing, Knox and Subido praised each other for working together to address mental health issues of staff, though both acknowledged that more work must be done. The District is implementing a 911 mental health peer support pilot program to allow staff to work through their emotions together.
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At the hearing, Knox, who did not respond to calls and email requests for further comment, asked the administration to provide additional counseling specifically for public servants and to increase public awareness of the daily pressure the call takers face, among other requests.
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“We are not robots or machines. When there is an emergency call pertaining to life or death .？.？. we are expected to suck it up and keep it moving,” Knox said at the hearing, adding that the pandemic has only made matters worse. “Take care of us so we can continue to take care of you.”
Hiring has been a challenge, officials said. The agency received only 150 qualified applications this past recruitment period, down from a usual of 400, which Subido said has made the overtime issue critical.
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“We don’t want to burn our people out,” she said at the hearing. “We want to have those vacancies filled, but we also don’t want to lower the bar in terms of who we bring on, because we have to have people that can do the job.”
In his statement, Geldart said the OUC has maintained the required minimum staffing levels throughout the pandemic, even as “sick and other approved leave statuses made meeting these standards difficult.” Though needs can vary, District officials said they aim to have 18 to 20 call takers, 14 to 16 police dispatchers and six Fire and EMS Department dispatchers each day.
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The OUC did not answer questions about how much the use of FMLA has increased during the pandemic, and how many open positions there are in the 911 center.
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Regardless, with the Delta variant causing increases in coronavirus cases, council members don’t see that “hardship” going away anytime soon.
“I remain very worried that OUC hasn’t taken steps yet to ensure we aren’t burning out our call dispatchers and that we have enough call takers on duty at all times without overly relying on mandatory overtime and extended shifts,” Allen said in a statement to The Post.
Subido, a 32-year veteran in law enforcement and emergency medical dispatching experience, agreed.
“In 911, you’re sitting there and getting one disastrous call after the next,” she said at the hearing. “To do that for 12 hours, even, is rough. To do it for 16, no. It shouldn’t happen.”
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