How did a $3 million effort to combine three of Brown County’s four dispatch operations end up plagued by short staffing and complaints by the departments it serves?

Many say lack of leadership, but the leadership says it’s just par for the course.

Six months before the county’s joint dispatch center was to come on line, Brendan Bruss — the hired gun from Chicago brought in to lead the project — was promoted to head the county’s Department of Administration. His position remained vacant until Sept. 28, 2001 — 12 days before the new communications center began dispatching.

“I think the biggest problem was a lack of a project manager,” Green Bay Fire Chief Jeff Stauber said. “When Brendan Bruss was reassigned, no one took charge. You don’t just walk away from it … especially when you’re the one with the vision.”

Firefighter David Parmentier, a member of the Green Bay Professional Firefighters Association and a former lieutenant in the radio room, said those who remained after Bruss’ departure were overwhelmed.

“Brendan leaving sent this project into a tailspin, and it never recovered,” he said.

Under the control of Brown County, three dispatch centers merged into one facility in October 2001. Since then, area public safety agencies have filed 200 complaints detailing delays in calls, wrong information recorded into calls and misdirected fire trucks and ambulances. Ashwaubenon Public Safety opted to maintain its own communications center after Village Board members voted to spend $450,000 to upgrade the department’s radio and computer system.

But with the complaints comes good news. The average dispatch time for Green Bay Fire Department rigs dropped seven seconds under the new system, and a greater percentage of calls are being dispatched within the one minute dictated by national standards.

Departure downplayed

David Tellock, the current director of the Brown County Public Safety Communications Department, downplays the impact of Bruss’ departure on the dispatch center’s progress. Many of Bruss’ duties fell to Communications Manager Karen Carlson — the No. 2 person in the department, Tellock said.

“Karen met her own workload requirements and Brendan’s workload,” Tellock said, noting that Carlson was finishing much of the technical support work and shepherding policy decisions and scheduling and staffing issues.

It was “almost an impossible task,” Tellock said.

Carlson described the additional duties as “a big challenge,” but something that needed to be done.

“Yeah, there were frustrating times, but I knew in my heart and in my soul that it was the right way to proceed, and I just stayed focused on the end result.”

Bruss argues that many of the same issues would have surfaced if his name were on the director’s door. Merging two 911 centers (Brown County and Green Bay) with a third dispatch operation (De Pere) was a complicated proposition, he said.

“It wasn’t the best timing, but I didn’t leave the organization,” Bruss said. “I would not have done this if I was leaving Brown County.

“If I would have had an offer from Outagamie County, I wouldn’t have done it.”

County Executive Nancy Nusbaum tapped Bruss for the Department of Administration job from a list of 10 candidates. Bruss was Chicago’s manager of finance and administration for the Office of Emergency Communication from June 1995 to February 1999.

Tellock didn’t fault Bruss for making the jump.

“Brendan had the vision where he wanted this to go,” Tellock said. “There were competing needs for his talents. I think it was a good decision putting him where he is.”

Nusbaum defended her decision.

“The (dispatch) office was literally ready to go,” Nusbaum said. “The timetable would have been faster had one of the unions not challenged the jurisdiction of another union.”

Moving Bruss “was a huge consideration with me,” Nusbaum said. “I only did it after assuring myself and others involved that Brendan wouldn’t remove himself from day-to-day operations.

“It caused him to have to work a heck of a lot harder for a few months, but he’s young and he’s smart.”

Nusbaum points to the delay in union contract negotiations as a key factor hindering the startup, because it stalled hiring efforts.

Radios and computers were installed by November 2000, and Bruss said the physical operation was ready to go in early 2001. But without knowing how many former county and city dispatchers would sign on to the new operation, the county was hamstrung in hiring help.

Once the union matters were ironed out, by May 2001, there wasn’t enough time — and physically not enough space — to get people trained, Tellock said.

Three main issues

Green Bay Police Chief Jim Lewis boiled the problems down to three issues:

• The communications department isn’t at full staff.

• New personnel aren’t completely trained and veterans aren’t cross-trained.

• Software problems still are being resolved.

The police department continues to use a sworn officer as part of dispatching. The plan was to remove officers from the radio room altogether, but Lewis said he wouldn’t take that step until the staff of civilian dispatchers is up to full strength.

“It can’t happen until they have a full complement of people hired and trained,” Lewis said. “The worst thing I could do would be to be concerned about my budget and say, ‘Give me my cops back.’”

Lewis said he understands that training windows are limited. “I am going to sit patiently while they train the new hires,” Lewis said. “I would expect them to cut them if they don’t work out. I think the end product should be better.”

Staffing could take a year

Tellock said it could be more than a year before his agency reaches full staff. Finding qualified applicants and completing their background checks has been a challenge, he said. Many candidates wash out before making it through training.

“Part of the challenge is finding the right person for the position,” Tellock said. “Once we get them selected and get them trained and they find out if the job is right for them, our retention is pretty good.”

Annual base salaries for communications staff range from $31,000 to $36,000 annually, but many earn more than that because of overtime.

Bruss said many of the complaints generated about the new radio room are par for the course, especially considering the amount of change that took place.

“What you’ll always see in the major consolidations is that it takes the first year for people to get used to it,” said Bruss, who led a similar initiative in Chicago.

“It is now an independent, civilian organization,” he said “You have people who were sitting in three different rooms now sitting in one. All of those things come into play on top of what is already a difficult technical venture.”

Bruss acknowledged that staffing and training issues — which began with vacancies before consolidation — have played havoc with efficiency.

“There is training time for dispatchers,” Bruss said. “Dispatchers don’t get hired and start working the same day.

“It doesn’t mean the room isn’t right.”

De Pere police Capt. John Kosar said he hopes improvement comes quickly.

“The reality is central dispatch is here to stay,” he said. “What we need to do now is provide constructive feedback downtown so they can tweak what they need to tweak.

“If we don’t do that, nothing will improve.”

De Pere Fire Chief Steve Servais backs Tellock’s efforts.

“He walked into a big mess and gave it his best effort to straighten it out,” Servais said. “I don’t think it’s any one person’s fault.”

Green Bay Press Gazette

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2002

Answers

Ashwaubenon: New center ‘a great liability’

In a March 28 letter to Brown County Public Safety Communications Director David Tellock, Ashwaubenon Public Safety Director Gary Wieczorek said problems at the county’s joint dispatch center are “a great liability to all of us.”

Since the county’s joint dispatch system was launched in October, personnel in Ashwaubenon, which opted out of the county system but still receives its 911 calls through it, have recorded a litany of complaints about delayed calls and wrong information.

One reason: A mirrored system allows Ashwaubenon’s dispatchers to see any delays.

Ashwaubenon’s Village Board voted in April 2001 to retain its own communications center, handling radio duties for the village’s Public Safety Department, which provides police and fire protection for 17,634 people.

The Village Board opted to spend $450,000 to upgrade the department’s radio and computer equipment, creating a mirror system of the one used by the Brown County Public Safety Communications Department, which provides combined dispatch services for the rest of the county’s public safety agencies.

When a 911 call — for fire or rescue — comes from an Ashwaubenon home or business, the call is answered in the joint dispatch center at the headquarters of the Green Bay Police Department. County dispatchers take the initial information and initiate the alarm for Ashwaubenon.

Dispatchers in Ashwaubenon pick up the call from there and handle communication between responders for the rest of the event. County dispatchers usually handle collecting information from the caller.

For police calls, the caller either calls the department’s administrative phone number or is transferred to Ashwaubenon’s call takers, who then dispatch squad cars.

Ashwaubenon officials opted to keep the radio room based on the premise it would provide better service to the village’s officers and the public.

“Sometimes bigger is not better,” Trustee Jerry Menne said.

In his March 28 letter, Wieczorek also said, “We are very concerned about this issue and in the delay providing service in emergencies. I am sure you will agree that this is an unacceptable condition, and after six months of operation by the consolidated dispatch center, I think that this will no longer be a training issue.”

Wieczorek wrote that he hoped improved communication between Ashwaubenon and the combined dispatch operation could help solve the problems.

In a reply, Tellock said the number of delayed calls is small.

“I agree that there have been a limited number of specific instances where calls were not paged or transferred in the time standards that you and I would both expect,” Tellock wrote. “Although the number of these incidents is small, our goal is to have 100 percent of the calls handled correctly and as expeditiously as possible.”

One delay cited by Wieczorek: the four minutes it took to dispatch an ambulance on Dec. 7 to 993 Manor Place, the home of Bill Steinman.

A 50-year-old woman who was a friend of the family collapsed, and Steinman called 911.

“It seemed to take forever for them to get here,” Steinman said. “I couldn’t tell you how long. All I know is I had a woman in a chair in my family room having trouble breathing, turning purple.”

The woman died a few days after being released from the hospital. Joe Grantham, then Brown County’s medical examiner, said she died of an overdose of prescription medication.

“I had a hard time getting through to these people what I wanted,” Steinman said. “I do remember finally saying to them, … ‘Get someone here now!’”

Wieczorek said he thinks his department is having fewer problems with the new joint dispatch system than other departments because it retained its own staff.

“They can concentrate our efforts on our incidents,” Wieczorek said. County dispatchers “have to worry about what’s going on in the entire county. We continue to have the community knowledge and the experience of our people.”

Wieczorek said he hopes the problems will subside and wants it to be sooner rather than later.

“I don’t know if anyone foresaw the problems that were going to occur,” Wieczorek said. “My question is: When can we start expecting to see some improvements?

“We’re going to continue to work with them. I don’t know there’s another answer out there.”

Green Bay Press Gazette

-- Anonymous, August 13, 2002