TEHAMA COUNTY, Calif. – The Tehama County Sheriff’s Workplace dispatch middle can as soon as once more deal with calls 24 hours 7 days every week, but it surely does not come and not using a workaround.
As of November 12, 2021, the division solely has 6 dispatchers, in keeping with Zachary Backus, the president of the Tehama Deputy Sheriff’s Affiliation.
4 of these six are totally educated together with a Deputy Coroner who’s briefly filling in. The opposite two dispatchers are nonetheless being educated.
Dispatchers there are anticipated to work 12-hour shifts every. And that is as a result of they deal with quite a lot of calls together with hearth, medical, and crime.
The division needed to discover a work-around to get these workers.
“We bought a deputy coroner who has beforehand been a dispatcher with the sheriff’s workplace and he or she was introduced again into dispatch to assist form of bridge the hole till we are able to get extra individuals making use of and approaching,” Backus defined. “We have been additionally fortunate that there have been a few different individuals from completely different positions inside the sheriff’s workplace who expressed curiosity in turning into dispatchers they usually’re at the moment being educated in that place.”
Backus says it takes about 2 months to rent a dispatcher. After which 3 extra months simply to get them educated – so total a 5-month course of.
Since June of 2021, the Crimson Bluff Police Division was dealing with the sheriff’s workplace calls when its dispatch wasn’t open. Nevertheless it wasn’t taking non-emergency calls.
Backus says a 15 p.c increase authorized by the Tehama County Board of Supervisors in April of 2021 helped transfer some items round to get dispatch functioning the way in which it’s now.
Regardless that the increase was useful – Backus tells Motion Information Now the increase nonetheless retains them nicely under the common for Northern California counties, which makes it tough to draw certified candidates.
The aim is to have eight dispatchers staffed.
“That approach you have bought a plethora of dispatchers clearly you want time without work. That stops burn out you’ll be able to have completely different dispatchers overlaying for these holidays and time-off requests,” Backus stated.
Backus says the opposite departments within the sheriff’s workplace are short-staffed too.
As of November 12, 2021, the patrol division is 50 p.c staffed whereas the jail is near 80 p.c full, in keeping with Backus.
