‘More work to do.’ Consultant report highlights lingering problems with Broward County’s 911 call centers

Coming on the heels of a state oversight panel’s demand that Broward County turn over the operation of its troubled 911 call centers to the Sheriff’s Office, a report the county authorized early this year may provide a blueprint to fix the system that has left residents in danger of not getting the crisis help they need.

The 130-page draft report by Fitch & Associates outlines many of the same issues that have plagued the understaffed emergency centers for most of the past year, and makes recommendations on areas that should be addressed promptly in the dysfunctional system that is managed by the county but staffed and operated by the Sheriff’s Office.

The report, obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel this week, concludes more needs to be done for speed and accuracy. Among the observations:

• There is still a problem with emergency response times. Consultants suggested the county “carefully adjust staffing levels” so it can answer 90% of the 911 calls within 15 seconds. Broward County records show that in September, the last month for which data is available, there were only nine days in the month where at least 90% of the calls were answered within 15 seconds during the busiest hour. On one day, Sept. 17, only 29% of the calls were answered within 15 seconds.
• The report cites ongoing problems for employees. At the northern 911 center in Coconut Creek, for example, “bathrooms have no hot water and harsh lighting, which reportedly causes eye strain and headaches.” And the call-in-queue alert sound is so “mentally intrusive” that call-takers report hearing it when they aren’t at work.
• Consultants said “abandoned calls” — times when a caller hangs up before reaching a 911 operator — occurred 156,000 times in 2021, or 12% of the time. The Sheriff’s Office tries to call back people who hang up, but this impacts staff resources for the next 911 call. The technology exists to make an automated callback, but the system doesn’t currently allow it. The consultants recommend that a “reconfiguration of the county’s existing 911 telephony network should be accomplished as soon as practical to permit” the automated callback feature.
• The technology exists to get a more accurate location of a caller. Although the county has plans to use it, “nonetheless, the recommendation is to deploy the service as quickly as possible to assist in the reduction of overall call processing times.”

[ RELATED: ‘My wife could have been here today.’ Hollywood man says wife died after 911 calls went unanswered ]

Veda Coleman-Wright, a spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office, said Sheriff Gregory Tony received his copy of the report Tuesday afternoon and ”Tony and his Communications team will evaluate the findings.”

Four county commissioners reached Wednesday said they either hadn’t seen the report, were scheduled to have the details explained to them by administration, or were still plowing through it and meeting with county staff.

A fifth, Commissioner Tim Ryan, said his take-away so far is that “there is more work to do — especially in the high-level management operations of the system. It’s more than just giving more pay to the 911 operators.”

[ RELATED: Broward’s 911 system still needs critical fixes, panel warns — nearly 5 years after Parkland shooting ]

In February, the county signed off on the $103,950 study by Fitch & Associates, which was to be a routine update to a previous study by the same group. Fitch compiled a 2016 report when the 911 system was dogged by complaints, mistakes and bad publicity.

The woes at the 911 call centers have dogged county leaders for most of the year; a series of South Florida Sun Sentinel investigative stories in the spring detailed how the agency couldn’t fill empty positions — or even keep the 911 call-takers they already have — which has meant sometimes dire outcomes for Broward residents calling for help during their emergencies.

[ INVESTIGATION: A dying baby, a home in flames and a father in distress: Broward 911 callers cry out for help and no one answers the phones ]

Among the problems uncovered:

• There were thousands of unanswered 911 calls, and among the desperate callers who never connected with the help they needed was from a family whose baby died and a woman whose house was destroyed in a fire.
• The stresses of being short-staffed are too much for many 911 workers. Sources have previously said some new hires don’t stick around long, and there have even been times when a worker walked off the job during a lunch break.
• 911 centers have been so understaffed that workers routinely log outlandishly long overtime shifts — enough extra work that many were able to double or triple their regular pay. One communication worker had put in so many overtime shifts that the person was known to grab naps in a car before clocking back in for another shift.
• Workers routinely found jobs at neighboring emergency operations centers with better pay and less stress.

Despite the county offering millions of dollars to solve staffing problems, records show the unanswered call issue hasn’t been fully resolved. On Oct. 31, a Hollywood man said he called 911 twice with no response, and received help for his wife only when he called a police dispatch center in Miami-Dade County where he works as a police sergeant. His wife died. Records released from the Sheriff’s Office show that at the time the 911 calls were made on Oct. 31, there were 19 people staffing the call centers, although 22 people were needed on staff during that hour block based on historical call volume.

Coleman-Wright, the Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman, said the agency “is conducting a thorough evaluation of what occurred on Oct. 31. Once all the facts have been gathered, we will be able to provide you with accurate answers.”

[ INVESTIGATION: Recruits walk off job within months of joining Broward’s troubled 911 call centers ]

Regarding the staffing shortage on Oct. 31, she said that since June, 74 operators have been hired and there are currently 38 vacancies — down from 90 open spots in the spring.

After a person is hired, they must attend a 12-week academy followed by about six weeks of on-the-job training, depending on the person’s proficiency, she said. “At this time, new hires are consistently coming on line.”

County Administrator Monica Cepero said ”we’ve been looking through” the draft report, and her staff would be doing one-on-one briefings with county leaders on the findings.

Michael Ruiz, assistant county administrator, said Wednesday it was premature to comment on the report.

County Commissioner Steve Geller said the final report is expected to be completed this month.

The Fitch report comes at the same time the county is trying to defend its ownership of the 911 system and fend off efforts to turn it over to the Sheriff’s Office.

A state safety panel created after the Parkland mass shooting has warned that the county’s 911 emergency system still faces some of the same problems that could cause delays in the police response that it did nearly five years ago when 17 people died at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

[ INVESTIGATION: Broward 911 call center workers log so much OT because of understaffing that they can double their pay ]

Cellphone 911 calls made from Parkland get sent to Coral Springs by design because Coral Springs handles fire and medical services. But that was a disaster in 2018 when children trapped inside a high school during a shooting spree needed police. Coral Springs police said they think they found a workaround to get the calls to the right place faster — but recently blamed both the county and the Sheriff’s Office for taking too long to test the new technology.

In response to the complaints from the city and the ongoing inability to correct recurring issues, the safety commission determined the county ought to relinquish the oversight of the troubled 911 system and hand it over to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, a request that has outraged county leaders who have pledged to try to remove the Sheriff’s Office completely as their 911 provider.

But as the state panel doubles down on its idea of how to fix Broward’s troubled system, it is now demanding change happen quickly.

“While investigating the Broward emergency communications system over the last five years we have received numerous complaints about [the] dysfunction and the ineffectiveness of the regional communications systems,” Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, chairman of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, wrote in a letter to the county last week.

He blamed the county for “serious relationship issues” that “cannot be resolved under the current organizational structure.”

Gualtieri said Sheriff Tony has proposed that all responsibility for countywide emergency communications be transferred from Broward County government to the Broward County Sheriffs Office, and the safety commission agrees.

“The current process is too fragmented and there is too much ‘finger pointing’ as to who is responsible for what and especially who is responsible for a variety of under-performing aspects of the entire system. By moving responsibility to the Sheriff, he will be held responsible and if the problems are not remedied everyone knows who to hold accountable,” Gualtieri wrote.

[ RELATED: Broward agrees to give millions more to sheriff for salaries and raises to ‘right this ship’ of troubled 911 call centers ]

While he didn’t mention the word “subpoena” — a word that was repeated over and over at the last safety commission meeting if the county didn’t agree to give up control of its $78 million communications system — he did write that the safety commission unanimously voted to have the county commissioners appear at their meeting “if all these issues are not timely resolved.”

The county fired back a letter Monday, saying it was “at a loss” at the suggestion that transferring services to the Sheriff’s Office would resolve issues.

The prospect of turning over the management of the system angered one county commissioner enough for him to ask that the issue be discussed at Tuesday’s County Commission meeting. Commissioner Mark Bogen said he will ask to “have the responsibility be taken away from the Sheriff’s Office” in favor of another provider.

Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sunsentinel.com. Follow on Twitter @LisaHuriash