Siloed agencies pose unnecessary challenges to improving public safety levels

Tami Hill-Lemus, a call taker and a Marion County Fire Rescue dispatcher, is silhouetted as she works at her station in the Marion County Communications Center at the Marion County Sheriff’s Office in Ocala on Friday, April 5, 2024. Editor’s note: The images on this page have been digitally altered to blur sensitive and protected text displayed on monitors, both in text and displayed on maps in the Marion County Communications Center. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2024.
Marion County residents have a sense of assurance that if they need to call 911 for help during an emergency, fire, law enforcement and medical personnel are ready to quickly respond. Their calls for help will route to one of the county’s two 911 call centers; one falls under the authority of the county commission and the other – the mayor of Ocala.
After reporting breakdowns in emergency communications over the last six months within Ocala city limits, the “Gazette” began looking closely at the systems in use for coordinating and routing calls for service.
The review found several challenges, including glitches in computer-aided-dispatch, or CAD, software; cell tower limitations; agency boundaries; and limited personnel trained to work in a technical field—all of which is exacerbated by public safety agencies failing to establish uniformity of response matrixes and technology.
These technological issues have real-world implications. The “Gazette” has heard numerous concerns from first responders from all the county’s public safety agencies about how the system is patched together.
After city dispatch errors were made in response to a Feb. 20 fiery crash that killed two people and injured another on SE 36th Avenue, an OPD investigative report noted the pressure the agency’s 911 call takers are under without enough personnel and with less automation than that of county dispatchers.
The county’s dispatchers do not have access to city’s 911 calls, and so they must rely on notifications and information received from the city’s call takers and dispatchers.
The “Gazette” witnessed first-hand a 12-minute delay in the city dispatching help to a priority 1 call in June, another one of the incidents that sparked the newspaper’s concern about the strength of our local communications system. This review, which included observing the county dispatch center for 18 hours over three days and 12 hours at the city’s 911 center over two days, pointed out several areas of concern.
The value of consolidating communication systems
In 2016, a federal advisory committee was tasked with making recommendations to the Federal Communications Commission on how 911 centers—officially called Public Safety Answering Points, or PSAPs–can optimize their security, operations, and funding.
The committee estimated citizens nationwide placed 655,000 911 calls daily and a total of 240 million 911 calls annually. These calls are answered in “approximately 6,000 PSAPs, which dispatch approximately 18,700 Law Enforcement agencies, 2,900 Fire Rescue departments and 15,200 Emergency Medical Service agencies.”
The committee described the challenges these centers were facing at the time.
The committee concluded that “delivery of 911 services could be optimized by sharing systems, by joint purchasing, by sharing infrastructure, by sharing staff. A regional or statewide approach maximizes the potential to achieve these optimizations.”
The city of Ocala and the Marion County Sheriff’s Office have not gone this route and instead have only deconsolidated more. They attempt to corral several agencies, each with different responsibilities:
Marion County Sheriff’s Office: While the sheriff’s authority encompasses all of Marion County, the daily operations are staged from unincorporated Marion County. This agency is led by Sheriff Billy Woods.
Marion County Fire Rescue: The county fire department is led by Fire Chief James Banta, who answers to County Administrator Mounir Bouyounes. This agency provides ambulance services for all of Marion County, fire services outside of Ocala’s city limits, and manages the county’s 911 emergency communications center.
Ocala Police Department: The city’s police department runs a separate 911 call center that receives calls within the city of Ocala. This agency has authority within the city limits, in addition to whatever authority is delegated to it by the MCSO. It is run by OPD Chief Michael Balken, who serves by appointment from Ocala Mayor Ben Marciano.
Ocala Fire Rescue: Led by Fire Chief Clint Wellborn, who answers to City Manager Pete Lee, this agency responds primarily to fire and accident calls within the city limits.
The Dunnellon and Belleview police departments have appointed police chiefs, and their emergency calls are generally routed through the county’s 911 emergency communications center.
On motor vehicle accident calls, OPD responds to those within the city limits. In unincorporated county areas, however, the Florida Highway Patrol is the lead agency responding with medical support from MCFR.
Of the two PSAPs in Marion County, the county’s center has sufficient staff and management levels, as well as what seems to be a more functional or higher quality CAD system. The operation is one of 10 PSAPs in Florida accredited by the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch, which is the “only standard-setting organization that identified the need for, researches, produces, and maintains standards for emergency dispatch worldwide.”
OFR used to be dispatched from the county’s 911 center since the two fire departments had to work together on most calls, but in 2020 then-OPD Chief Greg Graham and then-Fire Chief Shane Alexander demanded the city pull out of its agreement with the county and bring OFR under Ocala’s 911 center citing concerns about the quality of the county’s service.
In 2019, the city’s concerns about the county’s operation were related to errors associated with the county’s low staffing levels – which the county has since rectified, meeting both the recommended number of call takers and supervisors on the floor.
Recommendations that came from consultants in 2019.
Prior to the deconsolidation of OFR being dispatched by the county, the city and county hired a consulting company, Mission Critical, to give them Public Safety Communications Assessment. That report, issued in September 2019 advised the city if they were intent on deconsolidation recommended increasing staff by 7 to 8 positions requires a staff complement of 38 to 44 telecommunicators, depending on the configuration selected, and recommended that each shift have two supervisors.
“Therefore, based on the operational configuration selected, OPD Communications may need an authorized strength of 46 to 52 personnel,” the 2019 report recommended.
Call volumes have significantly increased since 2019, so one could reasonably conclude that recommended staffing and supervision numbers would have increased. But that hasn’t happened.
Our last list of OPD employees, in March of 2024, reflected a total of 37, four of which were supervisors, and one served as a quality control person. Unable to staff two supervisors as recommended, each shift at the city’s 911 center only has one supervisor, who also works the dual role as either a fire or law dispatcher.
Since the 2020 deconsolidation, the county has invested heavily in its communications system. If Marion County’s emergency communications center were to go down due to a catastrophic event, for example, another communication center waiting at a different location would work with staff as soon as they show up at the facility and flip a switch.
The county’s building is also more self-sustaining, with a bunk house for staff and a kitchen for when hurricanes or other long-term events keep 911 dispatchers and call takers at the center.
Chief Balken has not answered requests from the “Gazette” to discuss concerns about the operation of the city’s 911 center. The city did, however, provide the “Gazette” public records and allowed a reporter to observe its 911 dispatchers. Sheriff Woods declined to allow the “Gazette” to observe the MCSO dispatchers.
How the systems communicate, or don’t, with each other
The federal government issued a report in July 2022 identifying the challenges of deconsolidated CAD systems. The Computer-Aided Dispatch Interoperability report summarized the current status of CAD and the challenges associated with establishing an interoperable 911 CAD data-sharing capability nationwide. The analysis identified different challenges to achieving seamless interoperability, and found the following as primary obstacles to data-sharing:
- PSAP leadership and the slow decision-making progress
- Lack of standards and standards enforcement
- Funding
- Lack of federal or state oversight to enforce standards
- Unwillingness of some agencies to share data
- Workflow expectations among agencies
- Politics and jurisdictions not getting along
- Disparate CAD systems with disparate levels of functionality
The report included the consequences of the inability to share data across jurisdictions and the benefits of CAD interoperability. When dealing with multiple CAD systems, the key element is how quickly information is shared among the various agencies when a joint response is required, which is the majority of the time.
MCSO and MCFR rely on the same CAD program in place at the 911 county call center, meaning they can see each other’s calls. This is important for efficiency since ambulances often need to respond to crime scenes. Because paramedics are unarmed, they sometimes must wait for law enforcement to arrive before they can help an injured person.
OPD’s 911 center uses a different kind of CAD system than the county’s. As a result, MCFR and MCSO don’t have access to OPD’s calls unless that agency shares the information because they need assistance, such as a request for an ambulance.
And that happens often. The majority of dispatched 911 calls require medical assistance. And, while OFR has paramedics, the agency largely defers to MCFR because that agency has the ambulances – OFR does not.
Despite having sufficient room in the county’s communication center for OPD to place its dispatchers, the city has chosen to keep them siloed at OPD headquarters, working from a different CAD vendor software.
The CAD system operated by FHP, which responds to all accidents in unincorporated Marion County, doesn’t “talk” to either of the two local CAD systems. Therefore, every 911 call to the county that requires FHP assistance requires an old-fashioned telephone call to the FHP, with a dispatcher reciting the information all over again. Only the fire and ambulance service can be dispatched quickly through the CAD. Which means it’s likely that MCFR is usually first on the accident scene.
These technological differences can add an element of delay while agencies decide, “Are you going, or are we?” after the call for help comes in. More than a decade ago, a tragic incident in which a 12-year-old boy died in a fire on the Ocala/county line brought OFR and MCFR together in an automatic aid agreement where the answer to the dilemma is always: whichever unit is closer.
Dispatchers are the first line of response
MCFR dispatchers watch over the entire county all day, sometimes staging ambulances at various locations so that no matter where and when or how busy a local station is, additional resources are available as close as possible to respond.
It’s an impressive chess game for a county that is larger than the state of Rhode Island.
MCFR dispatchers can monitor OPD’s primary dispatch channels “just in case,” said Tami Hill-Lemus, a 12-year fire dispatcher for the county. “I don’t think they mind that we listen.”
Even with the advanced automated dispatch suggestions that allow her to dispatch quickly after making any changes she feels are necessary, she said the whole decision-making process and calling out fire stations is usually done within 20, but no more than 30 seconds.
But the more unique the call, she relies on experience and an astute knowledge of what’s in the fleet. While the “Gazette” was observing the operations with Lemus, a call came from a state park that someone needed help on the water. The caller said they heard screaming but could not see the person in trouble. In addition to sending the recommended unit, she alerted the responding department to send a boat to the scene.
Hill-Lemus said that when the big things happen, “we MacGyver it,” using their years of experience about what can go wrong.
Hill-Lemus has been the fire/medical dispatcher during some of Marion County’s highest-profile public safety incidents, including two tornados, multiple hurricane near-misses, two fatal plane crashes—one of which claimed the life of then-OPD Chief Graham–and the May 14 farm bus crash that killed eight migrant workers.
Ocala allowed the “Gazette” to observe its police and fire dispatchers in action. The technology, staffing levels and policies for dispatching OFR raised concerns. Rather than using automated fire dispatch matrixes like the county dispatchers use, the “Gazette” watched the city’s primary fire dispatcher, who was also the acting floor supervisor, scroll a PDF to figure out the right equipment and personnel to dispatch.
OPD dispatchers are also asked to be versatile in both law and fire dispatching. The county has dedicated fire dispatchers and the sheriff has his own law dispatchers. Law and fire/medical dispatch are significantly different, and in the case of the Feb. 20 incident, the OPD dispatcher said the fire dispatch “wasn’t her strongest” because she had been utilized for law dispatch for numerous years and didn’t have many opportunities to “swap around.”
“This last year I’ve been swapping more on fire, so like half the night on fire, half the night on police, and back and forth with somebody who has my same abilities and can swap back and forth with me,” the dispatcher is quoted as saying in the investigative report.
Over the years, the Marion County Fire Chief, James Banta, and numerous county commissioners have maintained that following the federal recommendation to consolidate emergency 911 would increase public safety and save money. The “Gazette” has asked the city to explain if it is exploring that option, but received no response to the inquiry.