LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas — With a shortage of dispatchers and an increase in crime, resources can be stretched thin— We've heard your concerns and reported on the delays in Little Rock's emergency response.
"We are being successful in getting the job done, however, the main concern for me about the physical and mental well-being of my staff," said Juana Green, Little Rock's 911 Communications Director.
Green has been the director for almost a year and has made changes to the department at a time when staffing has been very limited.
She said the department has 56 total dispatcher positions, and they are down almost half with only 32 of those positions filled.
One of the most recent changes that have been implemented— is the creation of a 12-hour work day.
"This actually allows them to have more off time where they can reset, decompress, not have to pick up a mandatory overtime shift," explained Green.
The national standard for call-answer time is less than 20 seconds. Green said Little Rock dispatch meets that standard around 81% of the time and they want to do better.
She also advised people not to hang up if it takes longer to get a dispatcher on the line. And added that there's a queue when you call in.
If you hang up and try to call back, you will be put at the bottom of the queue again.
Green said when a person calls the emergency dispatch, once that call is answered, the information is received then that information is assigned a priority level.
Life or death events are top priority, and lower priority calls could get a longer response time.
If you need to report an incident that doesn't require police presence, you can call the non-emergency line at (501) 918-4397.
"I don't want to confuse the public with saying their emergency is not a priority, but for us to better manage control of the types of incidents we have we have to assign them a priority code which is already established by the police department," explained Green.
We have been working with LRPD to get a list of what calls are prioritized, we will update the article when we get that answer.