Oakland’s Beleaguered 911 Dispatch Still Far Behind State Standards But Improving

After Oakland was given a year to improve its struggling 911 dispatch system or risk losing state funding, Mayor Sheng Thao said she believes it could meet the mandated response standards in 2025 — at least a year and a half later.

The warning from California’s Office of Emergency Services came in July 2023, as Oakland’s 911 dispatch program was plagued by reports of slow response times, overworked employees and high vacancy rates in recent years. On Thursday, Thao reported that although the Oakland Police Department’s response rate is still significantly below California standards, it is increasing staffing and making the first major upgrade to its computer-aided dispatch in decades.

“We are only going to see our call times actually improve,” Thao said at a press conference on Thursday. “They’ll be a positive impact, that 51% [of calls answered in 15 seconds] will increase. And, of course, our goal is to meet the state standard.”

Cal OES mandates that 90% of dispatch calls be answered within 15 seconds and 95% within 20. Oakland’s rate of 15-second answers was recently as low as 37% before rebounding to around 51%.

Although Oakland missed the state’s deadline to come into compliance by July of this year, Cal OES said in a follow-up letter that OPD has made “noticeable improvement” and that it will continue to work with them collaboratively.

City leaders said that a new, more reliable computer-aided dispatch from Motorola, announced Thursday, will replace a system that is more than 20 years old and no longer supported by the company. The new software will improve the department’s reliability and efficiency and give dispatchers access to more information to help navigate officers or firefighters to the scene, according to Thao.

“We’ve taken huge steps towards implementing reliable, secure, resilient infrastructure that our public safety agencies can use to continue delivering the high levels of service that the City of Oakland residents want and deserve,” Oakland chief information officer Tony Batalla said.

Oakland’s dispatch has struggled with staffing and retention. A grand jury report from 2023, the latest of two recent inquiries that looked into the program, found that “staff shortages, hiring difficulties, attrition, and mandated overtime” remain issues.

Last September, the city announced a $2.5 million investment in dispatch over two years, which included improving staffing and the CAD software. At the time, there were 16 vacancies.

As of this week, Thao said that the department has nine vacancies. Twenty positions are filled by trainees who are working in tandem with another employee, and the department is also continuing to train and certify trainees on a rolling basis.

“In the near future — I would probably say about five or six months, give or take — these dispatchers will be able to dispatch on their own,” Thao said. “Going through the common sense process of it, if they’re able to answer calls on their own, then we can multiply the people who are answering the phone calls.”

OPD reported receiving more than 1 million calls for service for the first time in 2022, which averages out to more than 2,700 a day.