Bosses in charge of D.C.’s crumbling 911 dispatch system have resorted to offering their staff an extra $800 a month just to show up for work when they’re supposed to.
The desperate move came after the number of dangerously understaffed shifts rose from 24 percent in May to 88 percent in July.
Computer glitches have halted emergency calls seven times so far this year, including earlier this month when a five-month-old baby died during a two-hour power outage.
And the system has become so unreliable that DC Fire and EMS have now created a shadow dispatch operation for the calls they need to handle.
“Isn’t it amazing that our first responder agency created a workaround for our 911 call center?” asked DC Council member Brianne Nadeau. “It’s crazy.”
Chief of Staff Heather McGaffin, seen here with Mayor Muriel Bowser, has offered her staff an extra $800 a month just to show up for work when they’re supposed to.
The sprawling 911 headquarters on the St Elizabeth campus in the city’s southeast was dangerously understaffed 88 percent of the time in July.
News of the monthly bonus was revealed in an email to staff Tuesday morning by Heather McGaffin, director of the city’s Office of Unified Communications (OUC).
“Good morning 911 team,” he wrote. “Starting now, all 911 employees who show up for all of their scheduled shifts will receive an $800 per month incentive.
‘Staffing is critical to the success of our agency. Unscheduled calls of all kinds are increasing and causing difficulties for co-workers who are continually stuck, arriving early and being asked to come in on days off.
“The pilot program is simple: show up for every shift you’re assigned and you’ll receive an additional $800 per month. We’re starting today for August.”
The offer has sparked outrage in a city where 321 people hung up on Sunday only because no one answered their call.
“I’m not sure I want chronically absent employees showing up when lives are at stake,” wrote one. “Hire better people, increase base pay, improve training.”
The homicide rate rose 35 percent to 274 in the city last year, and property crimes increased by a quarter.
Levels have begun to decline, but the dysfunctional dispatch office has been implicated in a growing number of preventable deaths.
A passerby called 911 after seeing a Dodge Charger plunge into the Potomac near the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in April of last year.
But driver Timjuan Mundell, 46, drowned along with his three passengers when Dispatchers sent responders to a different bridge a mile upriver.
And a five-month-old baby who went into cardiac arrest died after waiting 15 minutes for a response in the Woodley Park district on Aug. 2, when the dispatch system was overwhelmed by what was described as a botched software update.
Former interim 911 director Cleo Subido discovered that overhead screens that were supposed to broadcast local news broadcasts were tuned to sporting events when she was appointed in 2020
Councillor Charles Allen said the executive “won’t even admit there’s a major problem”
Many were horrified that staff needed a bonus just to show up, but others had some sympathy for the conditions at the site.
Councilman Charles Allen said problems at OUC have now reached crisis levels.
“Not a week goes by where a constituent has not been able to communicate, has had to wait a long time for emergency services to arrive in an emergency, or has received the wrong response, or no response, at the scene,” he said.
But the system has been notoriously bad for decades in a city that handles 1.8 million emergency calls a year.
As early as 2008, firefighters were publicly complaining that dispatchers were calling them “S for celery” when directing them to S Street and “Q for cucumber” when sending them to Q Street.
A 2021 review by City Auditor Kathleen Patterson uncovered a catalog of failures.
“We basically found a dysfunctional agency, across the board,” he said. Washingtonian.com.
First responders would routinely be sent to the wrong addresses because call handlers would chat with callers instead of using software to determine their location.
While ‘cliques, harassment and uncorrected inappropriate behaviour’ were endemic in the workplace.
“Lack of personnel, lack of training, lack of use of technology, insufficient supervision, insufficient supervision of the chain of command. Perhaps it would be easier to say what we did not find,” he said.
Cleo Subido, who was appointed interim director in December 2020, discovered that the huge screens that were supposed to broadcast local news were instead tuned to sporting events.
He found supervisors pitting staff against each other, happy to tolerate poor performance and resisting reforms for fear of upsetting office politics.
Last year, she sued the city, alleging in her suit that city officials “repeatedly attempted to cover up mistakes and mismanagement by OUC and downplay serious, life-threatening and often fatal errors.”
Activist Dave Statter says he has some sympathy for the dispatchers who are at the forefront of events.
“They know how desperate the situation is there,” he said.
‘Many of these people were forced to work overtime during their shifts. They are quite stressed and some of them have left for other 9/11 operations.
‘The problems at 911 really come down to training and, most importantly, leadership.
‘It seems like they continue to spend more time covering things up than trying to fix them.
‘The place has been in crisis for a long time and the situation is only getting worse.
“In fact, I’ve been saying for some time that this recent period is perhaps the worst I’ve seen in terms of the 9/11 attacks in the District in the 40-plus years I’ve covered it. It’s in bad shape and no one seems to be addressing it.”
As early as 2008, firefighters were publicly complaining that dispatchers were calling them “S for celery” when directing them to S Street and “Q for cucumber” when sending them to Q Street.
The system has become so unreliable that DC Fire and EMS have resorted to setting up a shadow dispatch operation for calls they need to handle.
An OUC spokesperson told DC News Now: “We appreciate the hard work of our team at OUC and will continue to recognize and reward those efforts.
“Staffing is critical to the agency’s success and we will continue to explore ways to improve agency performance while being good stewards of the District’s resources.”
Councilman Allen said responsibility for the failures ultimately falls on Murial Browser, the city’s mayor since 2015.
“The government won’t even admit there’s a major problem, but if it’s true that they’re paying people $800 just to go to work, that’s a clear admission that we have an agency that’s in dire need of major changes,” he said.
“DC residents are in shock and don’t trust that there is clear leadership and direction to turn the agency around. That’s a big problem.”