South Sound 911 is a recently consolidated public safety emergency communications center that has unified four formerly separate PSAPs and now provides dispatching services for 19 law enforcement and 18 fire agencies.  Now that South Sound 911 has completed its transition to a consolidated entity, South Sound 911, in partnership with public safety agencies in Pierce County, and the County itself, engaged DELTAWRX to conduct a multi-faceted strategic study of the emergency communications environment.

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Our work with South Sound 911 explored three different areas. First, we examined radio system management and architecture. We analyzed the current dual-system environment and made recommendations regarding the creation of a true single-system environment, consolidation of maintenance, support and management services, cost reduction strategies and the development of a unified approach to the replacement of fixed network equipment and subscriber units.

 

Our second area of focus was dispatch operations.  In this area, we conducted a staffing study, analyzed dispatch practices, and made recommendations pertaining to call routing, staffing level, call-taking/dispatching workflow, quality assurance and other operational areas.

 

Finally, we researched and analyzed the use and administration of funding streams throughout the emergency communications environment in Pierce County and made recommendations pertaining to financial sustainability and governance.  Funding streams included the County E911 Excise Tax as well as a Sales and Use Tax that provides funding for South Sound 911 operations.  Developing our recommendations required an understanding of the E911 environment and statutes in the State of Washington, as well as an understanding of the legal governance options available to an entity such as South Sound 911.  To enrich our recommendations, we benchmarked the financial practices and governance models of other consolidated entities in the region.

 

We served as a neutral advisor to effectively facilitate multiple workshops with key stakeholders in this multi-agency environment and ultimately made recommendations that had the buy-in of a range of representatives with differences in perspective.