San Diego's were saddened to hear the story out of Mira Mesa. A newborn was bitten by the family dog and died . As the story unfolded we learned that the family took the boy to the hospital themselves, to calls failed to get through to 911. San Diego police say the boy's father hung on the line for 28 seconds and hung up and call back only to wait 34 seconds before hanging up again. The national standard wait time is 10 seconds. It's not clear exactly why the wait times were long last Thursday, both the SP the admit there has been trouble retaining 911 dispatchers and they are presently understaffed. Joining me is San Diego police chief Shelley Zimmerman. Chiefs Zimmerman, how understaffed is the 911 police dispatch unit? We have our 911 dispatchers and we also have our radio dispatchers, that's 134 budgeted positions. We are 21 vacancies, hundred 13 positions, as of today. How unusual is a wait time for 911 of close to 30 seconds? As we look at our statistics, the last two weeks we averaged about 13 seconds wait time for 911. When we looked at the calendar, last year we averaged 13 seconds for picking up a 911 call. Police say 12 dispatchers were on duty Thursday night. Considering that you are understaffed, how many should there have been? One of the things that we look at, we take the average of the calls that come in the day, the hour and that's how we look at our staffing model. We had 12 dispatchers that were working, I think it's important to know that anytime, no matter how many dispatchers, those calls could spike depending on the critical incident was at the time. If there was a shooting, a fire, whatever the incident might be, calls could spike at anytime. Michael, what led to the staffing shortage? It goes back to 2009 and 2010 in the great recession. The city faced a number of bad choices at that time, they had to cut hundreds of millions from the budget. In addition to it actually laying off employees across the city, Esther not take bodies out of the communications division of SP PD. As people retired, they didn't fill those positions. Of a number of bad choices, they did the best they could, the problem coming out of that is that the economy has come out of it it's been very hard to hire those positions back and going back now three years, we have been feeling the effects of what happened in 2010. What of you heard from your rank and file dispatchers? It's very difficult, it's a difficult job under the best of circumstances. There are absolute professionals and they are also human beings. When they look up at the big board and see a 911 wait time, it just adds to the stress, it adds to the stress that they are on mandatory overtime and have to come back just to make sure that the staffing meets minimum requirements. It's been a challenging environment. They have been happy at the actions particularly of Mayor Faulconer over the last year, he has been on this and chief Jim Benemann Jos -- Chiefs Zimmerman has been trying to do everything to turn this ship around. He is done a lot of great things. Because it's a name grained problem it's hard to do that on the dime. I want to talk to Chiefs Zimmerman about mandatory overtime. It's true, we have to fill these positions, as we are going to the hiring process, we want to make sure there's somebody there to answer that call. We do have mandatory overtime to make sure we have someone there. I agree with Michael Zucchet , we of been working closely to solve the issue, tran18's budget we talk about previous budgets he is included adding communications, equally fully funding those positions allowing our department now to have the ability to hire all of our budgeted positions. One might say for the sake of argument that Mayor Kevin Faulconer , in promoting proposition B which eliminated pensions for city workers might have contributed to the fact that these workers are now so difficult to hire and retain. Would you agree? On the impacts of pop the -- proposition B. In the best of times this is a difficult position, that's true of all police agencies. What specific to San Diego is we are the only agency in the state that doesn't offer defined benefit pensions for new hires. If you want to pursue a career, San Diego may not be your first choice, because there is essentially a competitive disadvantage. That said, Mayor Kevin Faulconer has worked around that and come up with creative solutions to raise the compensation and the starting pay to address the specific problem. In general, it's unmistakable that this is one of the unintended consequences of proposition B that's coming home. Mayor Kevin Faulconer, critically important, our entry dispatcher positions, to make us more competitive, we now hire at eight see step which is a 10% increase from the beginning in starting pay. As a look at the 11 people that we have hired this year, all of them are still with our police department. That's great news. Chief Zimmerman , overall salaries are frozen until 2018, with that, how does San Diego, how are you going to go about filling the vacant dispatch jobs since everybody agrees that this agency is understaffed? What Michael Zucchet was saying it took us years to get to this position where previous mayors had cut positions from our budget during the reception -- recession. It had to be done to balance the budget. Unfortunately, we hired in very few numbers and we had many people leave. These last two years since Mayor Kevin Faulconer has been mayor we have hired 21 last year and currently at 11. I want to say that we expect to hire three more within the next couple of weeks. Many others are different stages of our hiring process. I want to get this out, we are looking for me. -- More people who are looking to make a positive impact on our community. Pretty much out of time Michael Zucchet. What's the morale like among dispatchers after an incident like Mira Mesa? It doesn't help, as I say, they are absolute total professionals. They have been dealing with these staffing shortages in various forms of tragedies for a number of years. They have and will continue to get through this. The light at the end of the tunnel that the chief is describing, really helps. I don't think they have felt that for a few years and they are feeling and out. If we can come through and continue to do more, the mayor and the chief now we need to do more. If we continue, we can turn this around, if they can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I've been speaking with Chief Zimmerman and Michael Zucchet . Thank you both very much.
The death of a 3-day-old baby in Mira Mesa last week is highlighting 911 call wait time problems and understaffing among San Diego Police Department dispatchers.
San Diego police Lt. Scott Wahl did not return calls Tuesday for comment from KPBS, but he told The San Diego Union-Tribune that after the boy was bit on the head by the family dog, the father called 911 and waited 28 seconds to speak to a dispatcher. He hung up, called again and waited 34 seconds, then hung up again.
The parents then drove the baby, Sebastian Caban, to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Twelve dispatchers were working when the family called, Wahl told the newspaper. In the half hour when the family called, the dispatch center received 73 emergency calls.
The national standard for 911 calls is to answer 90 percent within 10 seconds, but many cities fall behind that goal. Madison, Wisconsin, failed to meet that standard for more than a year, with thousands of callers waiting more than 40 seconds to speak to someone after calling 911. Minneapolis hired more dispatchers after a report said callers sometimes had to wait more than a minute.
A spokesman for Mayor Kevin Faulconer said on Tuesday that the average wait time for 911 emergency calls is 13 seconds.
RELATED: Authorities Release Name Of Baby Fatally Attacked By Family Dog
Earlier this month, Faulconer told the City Council that the city has 140 dispatchers who receive 1.4 million calls a year, more than half of which are 911 calls.
"They are experts at multitasking, they are experts at responding to pressure-filled situations, and they do it day in and day out," Faulconer said while making a proclamation for National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.
Under the fiscal 2016 budget, 134 dispatcher positions are listed for the department. Their pay ranges from $37,440 to $45,178 and has not increased since 2010.
Faulconer spokesman Craig Gustafson said the city will soon start new dispatchers at 10.15 percent higher base pay. Most current dispatchers have been given exceptional merit awards of $1,000, he said.
Dispatchers also signed a new contract with the city last year that will give them raises in 2018.
"For years dispatch positions were included in the budget but not funded," Gustafson said in an email. He said Faulconer "has and continues to fully fund" all dispatch positions, which means the budget provides the funds to hire for those jobs.
The Police Department currently has 19 dispatcher vacancies, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Gustafson said the city is now recruiting year-round for dispatchers, which it wasn’t before. In the meantime, the Police Department is filling vacancies with a policy of mandatory overtime for dispatchers and "having sworn officers who were former dispatchers assist at the call center when necessary," he said.
The city is also training officers who were not former dispatchers to assist at the call center on an overtime basis when necessary, he said.
