07/22/2019 BOARD OF SELECTMEN Agenda Packet

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of the dispatch union cited one of the largest issues was lack of competitive pay compared to surrounding dispatch centers. As a regional communications center that provides many dispatch services, we put much greater demands on our personnel as opposed to a dispatch center that may dispatch for one police department and or one fire department. We found staff were opting to leave BCSO in order to have less responsibility and increased pay. The other benefit to offering an increased wage is that it has attracted a larger and often more qualified pool of candidates when we advertise for hiring, ultimately providing us with the best qualified staff possible. Training As I'm sure you can appreciate, staff that work in emergency communication centers should be highly trained public safety professionals that, by regulation, are required to maintain many certifications and attend regular training. New hires typically require approximately 500 hours of training prior to going live on their own. Also, on a yearly basis, we strive to have existing staff receive at least 32 hours of in-house continuing education. In order to provide the highest qua-lity training possible, we opted to create a training officer position to fill that role. Along with new hire training and continui-ng education classes, this training officer will also provide targeted, one on one training with individual staff memo-ers if we identify any issues using ou-r extensive quality assurance-program. Supervi-cors BCSO's regional emergency communication center provides many services including answering 9-1--1 for eight communities, dispatching-ten fire departments, providing centralized emergency communication direction (CMED) for four area hospitals and approximately 75 ambulances, and we provide fire mutual aid services for the entire county. It is vital to have adequate oversite for our center and therefore we promoted four line telecommuriicators to supervisors to assist with that function. As a natural byproduct of having additional supervisors, it creates opportunities for advancement to our staff and therefore assists with retention. In preparation for the annual budget review by our member communities, .the changes outlined above were presented and approved to be included in the FY20 budget by the member communities that had attended our quarterly meeting held on September 18, 2018. BCSO holds quarterly dispatch meetings for its members which are typically represented by chiefs of the departments. We also welcome interested