PacCom budget talks – increases, overtime, and director

Published 7:50 pm Monday, August 19, 2024

SOUTH BEND — The Pacific County 911 Dispatch Center (PacCom) budget will increase in 2025, with moves to curtail overtime costs. In 2024, the PacCom budget allotted $160,000 for overtime. It is slicing $40,000 off that item for 2025, bringing them down to $120,000.

Dispatchers at PacCom routinely work close to 300-500 hours annually in overtime, each including shifts that span upward of 16 hours. In the past year, dispatchers have had to pull multiple double shifts, working 10-12 hours and being back at it 8 hours later.

Budget going up

The PacCom Administrative Board met on Aug. 9 to discuss the budget outlook for 2025, which will increase from $1.93 million in 2024 to $2.13 million in 2025. The increase of about $200,000 is primarily due to the agency adding two new positions aimed at cutting down costly overtime that is paid at 50% more than the dispatcher’s hourly rate.

Along with the increase, service agencies that receive dispatch from PacCom will also pay more. The average agency will pay double the rates that were billed in 2024 to help offset increasing operational costs.

“It is different for each agency, depending on call volume, assessed value, and population,” PacCom Interim Director Cait Ochoa said. “The county has the highest contribution of $308,000, and the lowest is $600.”

The increases are hitting service agencies hard, including the City of Raymond, which Mayor Dee Roberts represents. She noted on the record that the increase will be felt throughout the county.

“I would be remiss if I didn’t say this is a huge increase, and it’s going to be tough because PacCom isn’t the only one asking for money,” Roberts said. “We’ve got [the Pacific County Emergency Management Agency] that is asking for more in 2024, too.”

“I just want it noted; I get it. There is a lot of overtime. I am sure they need more staff. I get it. I think if you look around at other cities, they need more staff, too, but I just want it noted that this is a chunk of change, and it just repeats itself year after year. That’s just my opinion,” Roberts added.

Not sustainable

The 2025 budget includes $750,000 from the 0.1% 911 tax levy, which annually pulls in just over $500,000. The county has been sitting on a good portion of the money in recent years, only using about half of what is available.

In comparison, the board allotted $250,000 in 2019 and 2020, $350,000 in 2021, $430,000 in 2022, and $650,000 in 2023.

“We decided the last few years, as the budgets went up, that we needed to take more out of that fund because we were subsidizing ourselves with our own money, and the point of that [0.1%] was that we are gonna use some of that money for operations and things we need,” voting member and Long Beach City Administrator David Glasson said.

“The [$750,000] is not sustainable on its own. We bring in about [$520,000] a year, and that’s why you are seeing this increase to the members because it’s going to have to come up on the member’s side of it, to make it work because we are not going to be able to do that forever,” Glasson added.

According to Glasson, the board has projected that it can continue to spend $750,000 through 2029 before the budget balance becomes a major issue.

Ways to curtail

During the meeting, several ideas about how to tame the increasing budget were discussed, including expanding PacCom into the south county region by installing stations at a county-owned facility and evaluating new hires more closely.

PacCom has seen one of the worst turnover cycles in the county and hasn’t had a new dispatcher complete training and make it through probation in more than a year. Meanwhile, two newcomers in the training regime could be on their own by the end of the year, giving hope for the direction of the agency.

At the moment, PacCom has eight full-time dispatchers with two newcomers in training for a total of 10 staff. The new 2025 budget includes two more positions that would bring the agency to 12 full-time dispatchers — with a goal of having three on shift at a time during peak call times.

Sheriff Daniel Garcia, a voting member of the board, hopes to meet with the PacCom Ops Board, which he also sits on, to hash out the training regime for new dispatchers. He wants to develop progression milestones to evaluate them early on.

“Then we can really look at [this] and know at mile marker one, have they met the mark or have they not, because going forward with someone who is not meeting the mark right in the beginning, you got to figure out when to cut your losses,” Garcia said.

It is estimated that it can take up to 6-8 months for a new hire to be ready to work on shift without a trainer.

It is all new stuff

Although PacCom is in a rocky spot in its first year as a standalone agency, it is continuing to function, and many are crediting it to Ochoa. She took over the position on July 1 after the retirement of Ed Heffernan.

According to multiple dispatchers, they have rallied around Ochoa and believe she can lead the agency into the future. She still has to formally apply for the position like she did earlier this year, even though she didn’t get selected the first go-round.

Criticized and praised

Following Heffernan’s retirement, the board had no option other than to ask Ochoa to step to the plate after the initial frontrunner, David Houseberg from the Kittitas County Sheriff’s Office, bowed out at the last minute.

So far, she has been both praised and criticized for her work in the position. Pacific County Fire District No. 1 Chief Jacob Brundage has been her most prominent critic.

On the other hand, other agencies and municipalities have largely applauded Ochoa for taking on the role and have been overly impressed with her work ethic. She has steadily met with agencies to ensure PacCom serves them in the best way possible.

“I had some feedback from local law enforcement just yesterday, actually, and they have been very pleased that she is very receptive,” Roberts said. “They had some issues, went to her office, had great conversation, and [on] some of the issues she was like ‘I have been making a list.’”

The officer “explained to her a couple of his concerns, and she said, ‘They are already on my list and things I plan to deal with.’ They just had some great things to say, said that she has just been very receptive and very helpful and definitely willing to listen. I thought that was some pretty good feedback,” Roberts added.

Ochoa has yet to formally announce whether she will seek to retain the position. Right now, she says her biggest concern is keeping PacCom moving along well.

“I am aiming to provide better support for our team members, reduce overtime, mitigate the risk of employee burnout, and improve the quality of service we deliver to the public,” Ochoa said.