Callcenter photos11/20/2023 ![]() Workers in both rooms rely on banks of monitors that have everything from maps of the caller’s location to lists of available resources. The calls requiring fire department support are transferred across the wall to a much smaller room. A new computer-aided dispatch system will be installed later this year to assist in the process. The details of those requiring a police squad are sent via a computer system to seven dispatchers, one for each police district, at the rear of the room. The much larger police operation has several pods of telecommunicators fielding calls and routing them as appropriate. But representatives of both departments said the call volume and intensity of the room rises as the temperature does outside. “We don’t know what goes on behind the wall.”īoth rooms operate quietly, at least at 10 a.m. A wall currently divides the two operations. “We are excited for the merger,” she said of joining the MPD and MFD call centers. A third-party language line is used for less common languages. Marquez can also put her ability to speak Spanish to use, handling calls where the caller cannot speak English. “It’s never the same.” She enjoys the job and said it is well suited for people with tough skin and a desire to help. “There are no normal days,” said Marquez. Telecommunicator Elisa Marquez has been with MPD for 20 years. MPD Captain Michelle Haywood said the workers are the forgotten heroes of public safety. She characterized the job as emotionally draining, but rewarding as everyone works as a team to help the callers. “It is a moment’s notice that you are mandated and you’re forced to work 16 hour days back to back,” said lead MFD dispatcher Jasmine Salley. “This has been very, very difficult,” said the chief. MFD has been relying on mandated overtime. “We can finally pay our folks what they are worth for the horribly difficult work they do,” said Lipski. City residents receive a 3% increase in that pay level. The more senior dispatcher role saw a 29% increase to $64,125.10. ![]() The Common Council and Acting Mayor Cavalier Johnson recently approved a 26% pay increase, boosting annual starting pay for telecommunicators to $55,760.90 from $44,192.46. Approximately half of MFD’s 24 positions are vacant and MPD has approximately two dozen vacancies across 137 positions. “There are massive investments in technology that are about to go live,” said Fire Chief Aaron Lipski during a tour of the facility Friday.īut the departments need to be able to staff their operations for today’s calls before they can execute on a future vision. The vision is for a single worker to be able to take a call from start to finish, allowing the city to meet a national standard of answering 90% of calls within 10 seconds. In phases starting later this year, MPD and MFD will merge their operations into a new Department of Emergency Communications and create a unified call center. ![]() Fire or health emergency? For now, the call is routed to the Milwaukee Fire Department (MFD) dispatch center located in an adjacent room. Non-emergency? The caller is referred to the appropriate source. No caller on the line? It’s entered into a redial queue for another telecommunicator to check on. But instead of Goldman Sachs workers trading stocks and bonds, it’s approximately two dozen Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) employees triaging the more than one million 911 emergency calls the city receives each year.Ī call for an emergency in progress? It’s quickly entered so a dispatcher knows where to send police officers.
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