The men and women of St. Charles County’s Department of Emergency Communications who answer the phone when you call 911 have been given the highest professional rating in the industry.
The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) has renewed its accreditation for the St. Charles County Department of Emergency Communications. Accreditation is awarded for four years, and this is the agency’s first reaccreditation, following their initial accreditation in 2020. Of the over 170 emergency 911 centers in the state of Missouri, the St. Charles County Department of Emergency Communications is one of only six that are CALEA accredited.
The accreditation, which evaluates daily operations based on industry best practices, was announced this week after a lengthy review. CALEA’s assessment process looks at everything from written policies and procedures, staffing, performance, equipment, to training programs for both new hires and existing staff.
According to CALEA, the accreditation process is not to be viewed as an event that occurs once every review cycle; rather, as an on-going, quality performance review of the agency. To achieve reaccreditation, the St. Charles County Department of Emergency Communications met 218 applicable “best practice” standards.
“This reaccreditation demonstrates that as an agency we continue to operate at a level that is considered the best of the best in our industry,” says Emergency Communications Director Jeff Smith.
”We are fortunate to operate out of a new facility with state-of-the-art equipment,” Smith says. “I think our technology really stands out.” The County is now updating its 911 system with new hardware, including servers and phone sets.
Likewise, the County is transitioning from an outdated 911 call routing system (an analog selective routing model) to the latest call routing process that is IP based, which will more precisely show the location of callers. This will mean quicker dispatch and response times by emergency personnel.
Staffing continues to improve from the pandemic slump. At the worst of it, the County was down 19 of 44 authorized dispatchers. Now, the staff is down only 10 of 44–with three more in training. Smith predicts they’ll be back to pre- pandemic staffing levels by the end of the year.
Smith says the current average response time for a St. Charles County 911 to answer the phone is 3.2 seconds, with 99 percent of all 911 calls being answered within 10 seconds.
