Milwaukee Emergency Call Wait Time and Department Transitions

A report from Milwaukee’s Fire and Police Commission presented to the Public Health and Safety Committee on Dec. 1, 2022, reported that the wait time for 911 calls has decreased due to an influx of new hires, but they still are not meeting the industry standard.

The industry standard, set by the National Emergency Number Association (NENA), requires that at least 90% of emergency calls are answered within 15 seconds. In the second quarter of this year, April through June, the rate of answered calls within this range was about 73%. The quarter three report is not available yet. 

“The frequency at which they are meeting that 90 percent threshold to answer 911 calls in 15 seconds or less has increased substantially,” said Leon Todd, Executive Director of the Fire and Police Commission. “They are meeting their target goals, particularly with the new staffing.” 

The staffing increase was generally due to the pay increase passed by Mayor Cavalier Johnson and the Common Council at the beginning of 2022. They are offering over $55,000 for starting telecommunication positions and over $64,000 for higher-level dispatchers. There is a 3% increase on top of that for Milwaukee residents. 

The benefits of new hires are slow because of the extensive training process. It takes eight weeks for new hires to be independent call takers. The staffing increase took effect around July when there was a greater influx of calls. 

Milwaukee and the rest of the country are experiencing great difficulty maintaining staffing for dispatch centers. The call wait time report said the quit rate for telecommunicators within 12 months of hiring is about 20% overall in Milwaukee, excluding retirees. Because of low staffing levels, retained employees endure mandated overtime and long hours. 

“It’s a very strenuous job,” said Todd. “It’s high stress. It’s a difficult job. Not everybody can do it, and people do move on for various reasons.”

When the emergency lines get overloaded, non-emergency calls are often left to wait for extended periods of time. The average wait time for calls in quarter two of this year was about two minutes and thirty seconds. There is no industry standard for non-emergency wait time mandated by NENA. 

“We do not want folks to stop calling non-emergency,” said Alderman Scott Spiker of the Common Council. “Because what we don’t want is folks not calling the cops because they think ‘what’s the point? I’m going to wait on hold for 90 years and not going to get my problem solved.’ We want our residents to be engaged and report crime when it happens. An important component of that is making sure our non-emergency calls are not so long in their wait time that it discourages the calls in the first place.” 

The current analytic system does not track non-emergency calls or wait time because there is no industry requirement for this information. 

To help combat this issue, the Milwaukee Police Department developed an online format for people to report non-emergency incidents, such as shoplifting, without calling. The program is called Police to Citizen or P2C for short. The hope is there will be fewer non-emergency calls. This could directly affect wait time and call overload. 

These are the non-emergency incidents that should be reported online. 

• Theft of less than $2,500 (except car theft)
• Less than $2,500 of property damages or vandalism
• Missing property 

There are also specific criteria for the filer to meet. 

• The person filing must be at least 18 years old.
• An active email account must be provided.
• The incident happened within Milwaukee city limits.

This program is supposed to be especially useful for those filing a report for insurance purposes. 

The Fire and Police Commission has been working throughout this year to consolidate the Emergency Communication Centers (ECC) between these two departments. The older system, Public Safety Enhancement Program (PSEP), was built for landlines and had two separate call centers for fire and police dispatching. This was communicated in the Fire and Police Commission meeting on Dec. 1, 2022. 

The new program, Solacom 9-1-1, will allow GPS tracking as soon as a call is made to ensure quicker responses and shorter call times. The goal of unifying the two departments is to maintain employee retention and to increase response time speed and accuracy. 

The cutover is scheduled for April 2023. The original date was supposed to be the end of 2022, but the process is taking longer than expected due to technical difficulties and further testing. They did announce at the Fire and Police Commission meeting on Dec. 1, 2022, that they are on track for the April launch.