Program Manager Update
As the world begins it's return to “normalcy” so too has the Program Office. Activity with the Platform Modernization Project has kicked into high gear with ordering data circuits, data center activity, product demonstrations, and PSAP planning and conversations. Not to mention working through State ESInet connection logistics.
As with any large project, the project team has faced unexpected challenges and used the tools and protocols put in place to effectively answer those challenges and keep things moving forward on schedule and on budget.
The Outreach and Public Education Team has also risen to the occasion to help meet the current PSAP staffing demands by creating a multi-county, multi-jurisdiction coalition to develop and launch a marketing and recruiting campaign. At the same time, they have begun gearing up for a very busy event season; we anticipate increases in public engagement and are planning appropriately. Hopefully our mascot Emery has had a restful “off” season 😊.
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Financial
In the finance world, controlling your expenditures is a primary objective. Knowing how much of your fund balance is fixed and how much is flexible is important in understanding what you can control.
Most of the King County 911 Program Office's expenses can be controlled to a certain extent. Choosing a managed service option with the new Platform helped control the financial make-up and extends the fund balance longer than an equipment purchase option does. Things that can be controlled.
Excise Tax Revenue on the other hand is less controllable. The Program Office is unable to increase the sale of phone lines to King County residents through traditional ways of promotions and advertising. Advocating to increase the tax rate is an option, but it would have a steep uphill battle with numerous roadblocks. Thankfully the revenue position has been strong in recent years.
 As many know, landlines have been steadily decreasing in usage by approximately 10% or $300K each year. VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) has offset this decrease by about 50% with a year over year increase of around 2-3%, or $150K. The lion’s share of the Program Office’s revenue comes from wireless/prepaid wireless phones, which is roughly 77% of the total revenue. There is a steady growth in this category with a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of approx. 2.47% over the last 5 years. It is projected that these trends will continue for the foreseeable future.
What does this all boil down to? With a steadily increasing revenue stream and tight controls on spending, the financial outlook will remain healthy and sustainable in the years to come.
Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones. - Benjamin Franklin
Information Technology
This is the first installment in a series of articles introducing the new 911 Platform King County is implementing. The first edition covers the Platform architecture.
King County currently supports 12 call answering centers called PSAPs (Public Safety Answering Point). The existing architecture requires each site to have its own dedicated 911 system. Everything, including redundancy is repeated 12 times. This means a PSAP with three answering positions has the same infrastructure and maintenance as a PSAP with 50 positions.
The solution is to create Data Centers where there are four systems, each capable of processing the calls for all the PSAPs. Then create a network to connect the PSAPs to the Data Centers. The call handling equipment is shared by all PSAPs with individualized configurations. Each call taker will experience their PSAP configuration no matter where they are on the system.
To maximize the survivability of the Data Center nodes, they will be strategically located in three areas, one outside Western Washington. This Data Center design also simplifies the external network connections which will allow faster integration of future services.
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Legislation and 911
The 60-day Washington State Legislative session wrapped up March 10th with several items affecting the 911 industry.
Public Safety Telecommunicators (PST) will be classified as first responders with the passage of SSB 5555. In addition to the reclassification, this bill establishes a volunteer certification board to set minimum training standards for certification and ensure the standards are met by all PSTs in the state.
The "RCW Re-write" bills (SHB 1703 & SB 5571) both passed in legislation. They update current legislation language to accurately depict how 911 operates today and allow for future growth and modernization of 911 without having to modify legislation in the future.
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Staffing Task Force
In December 2021, the Program Office launched a Staffing Task Force in partnership with all 12 PSAPs. The objectives were to work on short-term and long-term recruitment and retention challenges.
On February 14, 2022, the Task Force launched an iHeart Digital recruitment campaign with other regional PSAPs to include Tcomm 911 in Thurston County, South Sound 911 in Pierce county, and Snohomish 911 in Snohomish County. This partnership allowed for a regional approach to recruiting and a cost sharing opportunity. Data showing the effectiveness of the campaign will be available soon.
The Task Force continues to meet bi-weekly to discuss trends, share experiences and knowledge on recruitment and retention, as well as recruiting events and opportunities.
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Spotlighting Regional Partners
The King County 911 Program Office partners with 12 King County PSAPs, also known as ECCs (Emergency Communications Centers). The work the PSTs do is critical to their communities and they are true first responders. The following is an introduction of one of the 12 PSAPs.
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Seattle Community Safety and Communications Center
The Seattle Community Safety and Communications Center (CSCC) is the newest department at the City of Seattle and is the primary PSAP for residents and visitors to Seattle.
With more than 125 call takers and dispatchers, CSCC processes calls to 911 for all emergency services within Seattle. Fire and EMS calls are then transferred to the Seattle Fire Alarm center. Most of the law enforcement related calls are dispatched to the Seattle Police Department which in 2021 was a total of 331,000 incidents. CSCC had over 1.1 million contacts in 2021 which included calls to 911, non-emergency calls, text messages and outbound calls.
For more information visit CSCC's page on Facebook. Their new website is slated to go live spring 2022.
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King County E-911 Mission Statement
The regional E-911 system provides an emergency communications link between the people of King County and appropriate public safety responders.
KingCounty.gov/911
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