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ST. LOUIS — Public safety officials have made progress filling the vacancies in the understaffed 911 dispatch system, beginning to cut down on dangerous hold times that have raised questions about the city’s ability to perform one of the most basic services of local government.

While that is welcome news for a city struggling to staff everything from the airport to zoning, an important structural fix to St. Louis’ 911 system has largely been put on hold.

The hires the city has made recently are largely police dispatchers, who still serve as the primary call-takers in a disjointed system. Police dispatchers field all calls and must decide whether to transfer them to either EMS dispatchers for medical emergencies or fire dispatchers for fires.

Major reports on St. Louis’ public safety infrastructure have called out the system for years. It delays the dispatch of first responders, overburdens one type of call-takers and dispatchers (the police), and risks the drop of emergency calls as they’re transferred to EMS or fire dispatchers.

“This does not represent a best practice,� a 2014 study of the city’s fire and EMS services said bluntly, underlining the statement for emphasis.

But integrating the system is not as simple as training employees to answer all calls.

One union represents police dispatchers, and another represents EMS and fire dispatchers. The unions have demanded bargaining over any dispatcher cross-training. Uncertainty about which union would represent a combined dispatcher position slowed attempts by Mayor Tishaura O. Jones and her former public safety director, Dan Isom, to allow dispatchers to handle all types of emergency calls.

The unions complained Jones and Isom’s plans for consolidation were made without consulting them and that the changes in job duties were clearly something that should be covered in contract negotiations. Richard Frank, the city’s personnel director at the time, agreed with the unions.

But the city tried to move forward with a new combined dispatcher position a few months later. The police union responded by threatening a lawsuit.

Since then, the city hasn’t filled the combined public safety dispatch positions it created, and cross-training has taken a back seat to the immediate staffing crisis.

Jones and interim Public Safety Director Charles Coyle say they still envision a fully integrated 911 dispatching system, with cross-trained dispatchers housed in a combined dispatch center the city hopes to have built and open by 2026.

“We’re still pursuing that, but we wanted to make sure we can staff up first, and so we’re vigorously working on decreasing our vacancies,� the mayor told the Post-Dispatch late last month. “Because we’ve lifted the city residency requirement and increased the pay, we’ve got a lot of new applicants.�

Coyle, in an interview, said the department will begin cross-training once it fills 75% of the open positions in its 911 dispatching ranks and new hires have enough experience, generally eight to 10 months, to work on their own.

“That is not a short-range plan by any means,� Coyle said.

After that, the city will look at hiring for its new “public safety dispatcher� position it created last year. The unions and employees will have to work out whether the police or fire union will represent the position, Coyle said. The Missouri State Board of Mediation may need to help resolve the matter. Frank, the former personnel director, said it could require a “runoff election� of affected members.

Coyle said the city has a long-term plan for the future of its 911 operations and will work with the unions on cross-training and the combined position once staffing levels recover.

“We’re going to try and get them in the door,� Coyle said. “We know that some of the negotiating partners, we have some work to do. We know that. But I don’t know if we’re going to have much of a problem about just cross-training from one to another.�

Dan Clark, president of Local 73 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said the combined position and cross-training came up briefly with the city during a bargaining session, but there were no changes made. He said the union “supports anything� that improves 911 dispatching, but members want to be part of negotiations.

He anticipates it will be a part of contract negotiations in the future, adding the union has a good working relationship with the new personnel director, Sonya Jenkins-Gray, who serves as the city’s chief negotiator with its employee unions.

“It does sound like they’re willing to bargain,� Clark said.

The St. Louis Police Officers’ Association reasserted that any changes to dispatcher duties need to be negotiated with the union. But Joe Steiger, business manager of the union, said it hasn’t begun talking with the city about it or with the fire union about which union would represent combined dispatchers.

“Our main focus has been getting a meaningful raise for dispatchers to help replenish the shortage of dispatchers,� Steiger said.

‘Not going to deter us’

Coyle has touted the more than 100 applications for dispatcher positions since the city has instituted big pay increases. Since early 2020, the city has nearly doubled the starting salary for police dispatchers, to $47,000. The latest, a 13% raise, took effect in July.

Also this summer, the state law ending the requirement that city employees must live in the city — increasingly difficult in shrinking St. Louis — has expanded the city’s labor pool by over a million.

Soon, the number of police dispatcher vacancies will be down to 22 from a recent high of 39, Coyle said, out of 74 non-trainee police dispatcher positions and 13 managers.

The city also has cut vacancies among EMS dispatchers, with about five open positions left, the public safety director said. Half of the city’s 19 EMS dispatcher jobs were open this summer. There, the city raised salaries to match those of police dispatchers, a major jump. Police and EMS dispatchers last year were also moved into the same building, enabling more collaboration and cross-training.

Fire dispatchers are already fully staffed.

“We’re not going to have a problem with fire dispatchers, I believe,� Coyle said. “They’re going to always be close to full staffing.�

That’s because fire dispatchers are the highest paid, and their pay is . The highest-paid fire dispatcher of the 10 employed by the city pulls in $65,000 in regular salary and close to $90,000 with overtime.

Coyle acknowledged the pay disparities complicate combining positions, but he said the city still plans to move ahead and negotiate with the unions for a combined dispatcher job.

“To be more efficient, we think we have to take that route,� he said. “We know that there may be bumps and bruises along the way, but we’ll continue to move and improve the system as we go.�

One of those improvements will be the combined 911 dispatch center, planned to be built next to the existing fire department headquarters on North Jefferson Avenue. The $43 million project has $20 million secured from the city and $10 million from the state, though Missouri Gov. Mike Parson vetoed the rest of the funds the city requested to finish the project.

Coyle said Parson’s veto hasn’t slowed the project’s timeline, and design work is largely complete.

“That’s not going to deter us,� Coyle said. “We’re working to raise the money, and planning is continuing.�

In the meantime, Coyle said the new hires will help the city inch closer to the national standard of 90% of all 911 calls answered within 10 seconds, a number that had dropped as low as 64% in recent years.

“I am anticipating a rise in the percentage of calls we can get to within 10 seconds,� Coyle said. “That number has already started to rise a little bit. We’re not there yet. It’s better, but it needs to get much, much better.�