What is a Public Safety Telecommunicator?
Depending on who you ask… Public Safety Telecommunicators can be considered the first ‘first responder’ (we are the first person to speak with someone), a secretary (this is the job classification the state government believes to which we belong), the voice behind the radio (due to dispatching first responders), or just… a dispatcher (we’re not Law Enforcement Officers, so we must be less knowledgeable).
We’re often labeled these things because most people don’t actually understand what we truly do day in and day out.
Every agency has slightly different responsibilities for its Public Safety Telecommunicators.
Here in Olmsted County, our Center is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, by 22 Public Safety Telecommunicators, 4 Shift Supervisors, and 1 Communications Center Manager.
We dispatch for the Rochester Police Department, Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office, Rochester Fire Department, Eyota Ambulance, as well as all the rural Olmsted County fire departments and first responders.
‘Dispatching’ doesn’t just mean sending first responders places. We also handle requests to query people and vehicles for officers, check prior contacts on people and at addresses, provide safety status checks to responders, and give pertinent updates as they’re still en route to calls.
The same people dispatching first responders are also answering your 911 phone calls and all non-emergency lines.
In 2022, we answered 52,487 911 phone calls, while handling 132,329 administrative (non-emergency) phone calls, which totals 184,816 incoming calls.
On top of dispatching and answering the phone, we handle multiple behind-the-scenes responsibilities.
We manage entries into the local and national databases for missing persons, stolen vehicles, and stolen license plates.
We monitor online report submissions, city-operated cameras, as well as other agencies making requests.
Fun fact- If you were to take all of our 2022 incoming phone calls and turn them into one continuous call, we would have been on the phone for 200 days 9 hours 36 minutes, non-stop. That of course doesn’t take into account outgoing phone calls or radio time.
This is just a small glimpse into the amount of work we do and the responsibilities we have.
We hope this gives you some insight into your local Public Safety Telecommunicators.
- 911 Communications Center Supervisor Jerod Baertsch
