Program Manager Update

These past months have been a flurry of activity. On the project front, we came bursting out of the testing phase into a full implementation gallop. Not to steal the thunder of the technical brief below, but we cut over the first two sites to the new system and everything has been performing as expected; a testament to all the planning and work.

A big thank you to Port of Seattle and Redmond Police for agreeing to go first and help us work out any potential issues. A huge thanks as well to Marlys Davis and Tom Ahlborn for their excellent project management oversight, Beth Knieps and her technical team of Khalid Khan, Ryan Bone and Ken-Dall Lock for their excellent work in assisting with bringing the sites online. Our Intrado vendor team of Project Managers, technicians, and trainers have been simply outstanding. In any large-scale project it takes a team to make it successful and this team has proven to be second to none.

Public Education and Outreach is a line of business that is an integral part of our overall efforts in creating a successful program. We made a concerted effort to alter our Outreach strategy to be more nimble and more engaging with the public. Thus far, the strategy looks like a success in large part to the efforts of Jami Hoppen and Melissa Walker. Melissa has been instrumental in broadening our event schedule and supporting our local agency partners. She has worked tirelessly to attend numerous public events and supported even more with educational materials. With PSAP staffing edging toward crisis levels, the team was able to quickly shift focus to drive and support the recruiting efforts of our PSAP partners. To reach more people, the State 911 Office registered for a booth at the Washington State Fair, and it was Melissa who helped organize the event and personally worked the booth almost every day of the Fair. Melissa truly is a 911 professional!

Financial 

Once again, it’s the holiday season and we are wondering where the year went! The finance team is ready to have another successful year-end close. Current forecast of revenue and expenses for year-end are positive and a comprehensive year in review report will be out early this year.

The Platform Project is performing very well on all fronts and is in fantastic shape from a financial perspective. The Project has a total appropriated budget of ~$21M with contingencies. As of December, it is forecasted to come under budget by $6.9M! This even includes adding features like a Centralized Logging Recorder and a Text Translation service. It is very exciting to see the progress and success of the team during the implementation phase.

"When you're finished changing, you're finished." - Benjamin Franklin

Off to the Races!

Upon completion of extensive testing and verification, the new Platform Project was finally accepted on November 6.

Having that approval, the Port of Seattle Police cutover to the platform on November 8. Things went so smoothly that on December 12 Redmond Police migrated to the new system. 

Photo by Sheryl Mullen (Redmond Police) 

The success of the Project so far can be attributed to the collaboration between King County 911, Intrado and the PSAPs.  There were a few minor adjustments needed at both PSAPs and one issue that was specific to Allstream (a commercial phone service provider).  Everyone got a well-deserved break at the holidays to rest up and be ready to start off the year with preparation for the cutovers at the Seattle PSAPs.

It is a testament to the skill and dedication of the entire team that the implementations have been so successful. 

Public Education & Outreach

This year the Public Education Team continued to raise the bar by increasing their community events from 30 in 2022 to over 50 in 2023!  The team continues to focus on reaching under-represented communities and ensuring equitable education on proper 911 use and 911 services offered to King County community members.

Additionally, the team spoke with multiple students at high schools and colleges regarding career opportunities in 911 and age appropriate 911 use.

Next steps for the team are to continue building connections with local schools with additional presentations in 2024, identify top languages for foreign exchange students at the schools, and develop educational materials for the schools to distribute to students.    

911 Funding Tiger Team 

In June, the State 911 Advisory Committee (AC) created a Tiger Team to evaluate 911 funding and explore whether changes to the current 911 excise tax is necessary.

The current excise tax rate is $.95 per line (hard line and wireless telephone numbers) per month. Of the $.95, $.25 goes to the State and $.70 to the counties. The last increase to the excise tax occurred in 2010 with an increase from $.70 to $.95. There have been no other increases in over a decade despite rising inflation. The only exception to this is the inclusion of VOIP and prepaid wireless lines into the excise tax in 2012 and 2014.

For years, the PSAPs across the state have tried to utilize technological advances to assist in mitigating the increased operating costs. Some ways PSAPs have done this are:

• Collaborating with law enforcement agencies to implement online reporting.
• Utilizing three digit dialing services such as 211, 311, and 988 for referrals.
• Implementing internal call routing options to manage call load.  
• Partnering with alarm monitoring companies to implement a streamlined notification process between the alarm company and the PSAP.

Despite the technology assisting in decreasing call volume, operating costs have continued to increase to a point where the current revenue is unsustainable long term. The Tiger Team will be making a recommendation to the State 911 Office (SECO) in the spring for legislative consideration. 

Legislation and 9-1-1

The short 60-day Washington State Legislative session begins Monday January 8 and is slated to end March 7.

Some bills were pre-filed starting December 1, 2023, and Senate Bill 5808 (SB5808) has potential to impact 911 directly by proposing to grant interest arbitration to certain Public Safety Telecommunicators. 

The Program Office staff will continue to monitor SB5808 and any other bills related to 911 or that may have an impact on 911 during this session.