WASHINGTON — DC Councilmembers held the first of several roundtables focused on improving the Office of Unified Communications (OUC) —an agency facing public scrutiny over reports of first responders being dispatched to wrong addresses, long response times for 911 calls, and technical issues.
The five-hour-long hearing was held just hours after Councilmember Brooke Pinto paid an unannounced visit to the 911 call center on Saturday night. The Ward 2 councilmember, who chairs the Committee on Public Safety and Justice, says it is her third visit. However, this latest visit occurred during the agency's overnight shift.
Pinto outlined a staffing shortage detailing that during her visit there were three fire and EMS dispatchers present when there should have been six. She says only one of the dispatchers present was assigned to the entire city. Pinto also reported that there were 15 call takers when there should be 17.
"This is unacceptable, staffing should be the agency's priority," Pinto said.
OUC Director Heather McGaffin recognized the agency's staffing issues, telling the council that out of the 54 shifts in September, 29 have met their minimum staffing goal. McGaffin says that some of her employees are struggling to make the decision to show up to work or deal with issues at home.
"They're moms, they're dads, they're carrying for parents or other loved ones, transportation," McGaffin told WUSA9. She said she was unable to quantify the most common issues keeping people from showing up to work and how many employees were impacted.
In August, McGaffin implemented a $800 attendance bonus that is given monthly to 911 personnel who show up to all their scheduled shifts.
According to OUC numbers, 30 days before the program, the average staffing level was at 84% of the agency's goal. The agency says a month after the incentive was put in place, the average staffing level was 102% of the OUC goal. During the first month, 94 employees received the bonus for showing up to all their scheduled shifts.
Currently, OUC has 91 dispatchers on staff with 18 vacancies. The agency is also trying to fill 24 call-taker positions.
"Even if we fill all of the vacancies, we are still not going to be where we need to be in terms of staffing in my point of view. I think we have to get down to eight-hour shifts," Pinto told WUSA9 as she voiced concerns about long shifts.
Despite the staffing constraints, McGaffin reported that her agency answered nearly 78% of 911 calls within 20 seconds.
Throughout the hearing, Councilmembers cited specific cases that have garnered public attention, specifically an Aug. 2 tragic incident involving a 5-month-old infant. The baby boy's death coincided with a citywide 911 dispatch system outage. DC officials say firefighters responded to an apartment building in the 3000 block of Connecticut Avenue Northwest and requested additional medical support for the baby who was experiencing cardiac arrest. According to radio traffic, the dispatch center repeatedly tried to send crews that were unavailable and still handling other calls.
Deputy Mayor of Public Safety and Justice, Lindsey Appiah provided insight into the incident telling reporters, that the two crews who were dispatched were not available.
"So Fire and EMS provided information about crews they believed to be available at the time that dispatch occurred, and so later in the call we realized they were not available," she told reporters.
Former WUSA9 reporter and public safety watchdog, Dave Statter was among the public witnesses. Statter, who runs Statter911, pushed back on Appiah's explanation of the Aug. 2 incident writing on X, "So, dispatchers aren't expected to have any situational awareness about what units they dispatched just minutes earlier."
Statter testified that the dispatcher failed to confirm that the crews were responding to the scene. "They weren't. And as I testified, they didn't discover this for another 10-plus minutes."
D.C. officials say the technical outage was caused by a contracted worker who worked with the city's IT department. That person has since been fired and an investigation is underway for the case.
McGaffin and Appiah also shared details about a recent problem impacting 911 callers. They're continuing to work with Verizon Wireless regarding an issue involving dropped emergency calls after a two-minute wait for a 911 operator to pick up. This appears to be a nationwide issue, according to their testimony. OUC told WUSA, few calls take two minutes or longer to answer, so the issue isn't affecting callers frequently, if at all.
WUSA9 reached out to Verizon who acknowledged our request for comment but did not provide a statement.
The next OUC roundtable will be held in October.