Raleigh 911 dispatcher says some shifts way below minimum coverage, putting public at risk

She's leaving the job, burnt out from chronic staff shortages and low pay.

"The job is stressful to start with, even under the best conditions," said Beth Fulks, who has worked as a 911 dispatcher in the Raleigh-Wake Emergency Communications Center for six years.

She says when shifts are short-staffed, the stress is even worse; sometimes dispatchers don't even get full meal breaks. She says that stress and lack of time for basic necessities like food and rest means workers can't do their best work.

"When you're working so short every night, and you're skipping your lunch break, you're eating food at your console, the phones are ringing off the hook," she said. "It's very taxing on you. You don't feel like you're giving the service they need."

She says city policy requires a minimum of 14 staffers in the call center for each shift – and yet for many shifts, she says, only 8 are on duty.

"By the end of the day you feel like crying – that maybe you didn't do good enough," she said.

For one thing, she says, the pay for 911 dispatchers is far too low. The starting salary for a tele-communicator in Raleigh is $37,000, lower than in several nearby, smaller cities.

"There needs to be proper compensation for the job that we do, and the difficulty of the job that we do," she said.

In order to stop what she calls the "mass resignation," the city should give 911 dispatchers at least a 10% raise.

Raleigh's 911 center answers calls from across Wake County. It dispatches for eight police departments, 20 fire departments, and all of Wake County's EMS.

Fulks worries there won't be enough people to answer the ever-growing number of 911 calls.

"Our call volumes have definitely gone up," she said. "The phones are just insane."

WRAL News asked the emergency communications director, Dominick Nutter, about these concerns.

In a written response, he says this problem is not unique to Raleigh: "Our department, like many across the country, continues to manage staffing challenges consistent with industry trends. We are working to aggressively recruit strong, qualified, candidates."