ROCKLAND – Knox Regional Communications Center returned to a fully independent emergency telecommunications operation on May 1, 2024, at approximately 9:30 a.m.

For eight and a half months, Waldo County fielded the KRCC’s 911 calls, transferring information electronically to the staff in Rockland, 24/7, while Knox County administrators scrambled to repopulate a severally dwindled dispatch employee roster. With a recent rebound in filled positions, and a final sign off by authorizing agencies, KRCC is back to fulfilling all aspects of the job. The contract with Waldo County still has 28 days left, which will act as a bit of a cushion in case something goes “glitchy” with the electronics, according to Gordon Page, Interim Knox County Administrator.

“The crew’s ready,” he said.

Returning the roster to 11 of 13 positions (with a 14th person as highest administrator), eight people have either returned or have gone through the 16-week training course in order to handle this county’s average annual 911 call volume of 12,000-14,000 calls. This doesn’t include the calls to the non-emergency line that are estimated at 44,000 by KRCC director Bob Coombs and Sheriff Patrick Polky. This year alone, between January and April, approximately 22,000 non-emergency calls (both incoming and outgoing) swept across the telephone wires.

According to Coombs, it takes dispatchers two to three years to get comfortable in the position, and, unfortunately, most dispatchers don’t last that long.

The task is challenging and has been financially unrewarding, and is a large reason why many of the previous employees resigned and why those who remained decided to unionize, according to Polky. All dispatch centers are struggling, he said, though the others haven’t gotten to the critical level experienced by the KRCC. Studies of dispatch centers are showing that administrators continue to treat the employees like they are secretaries working in police or fire departments, “versus the professional organization we’ve made it become,” said Polky.

“We’ve cut them out of the limelight,” he said. “We haven’t told them what they actually do for us. The public just expects the work. They usually don’t want to know why, or care to know why.”

Advice for calling 911:

Answer all of the questions. Believe it or not, taking the time to answer the questions will actually get you the help sooner; equally as important, it will get the proper help to you sooner.

If your friend is having symptoms of a stroke, dispatchers will  follow a certain questionnaire, designed for such emergencies, and will determine what level of licensed EMS provider to start in your direction.

If you have a medical call, don’t just repeatedly shout “send help.” Dispatchers will assume that your call is a police issue, and will send law enforcement first.

If you accidentally call 911, don’t hang up. Stay on the line and assure the dispatcher that you are OK. If you don’t, a law enforcement agent will be sent to your house, which is considered a waste of public resources.

What they are doing is an immense amount of work as singular persons while larger dispatch centers are splitting up the same job, having two or three people working together to get that job done.

But, the eleven KRCC hires are willing to give it a try, even as they wait for their benefits to be negotiated by their new union.

To meet the standards of the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAT), Coombs and his crew needed to make sure that every new or returning hire was in the proper place, properly trained, and ready to go.

The State sent KRCC a list of bullet points, a get well plan, that needed to be fulfilled. (Did everybody have the training they were supposed to have? Were the employees sent to the refresher courses that they needed?) They also wanted to see the staff in action.

“It’s like riding a bicycle,” said Polky. “If you don’t ride it for awhile, it takes a minute to get the cobwebs out.”

This entire situation is unusual, according to Polky. Usually, the State will simply shut down a dispatch center for the scenario that KRCC found itself in eight months ago, August 2024. Yet, the study that many people turned to when this crisis took hold determined that the system was designed based on the best-case scenario, which is everyone having the money they needed, everyone having the staff. The system was not design on the worst case scenario, which is every PSAT in the state struggling with staffing.

“That’s why they didn’t shut us down,” he said.

Reach Sarah Thompson at news@penbaypilot.com