Councilman Raises Questions About Dallas 911 Call Center

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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Dallas city councilman Scott Griggs is raising questions about the city's contract with AT&T to service its 911 call center.

"We have a broken 911 call center and we need to understand why it broke," says Griggs.

Two residents claim their loved ones died this month after repeated attempts to reach a 911 operator either failed or were extremely delayed.

• Contract

Griggs wants to know more about the city's five year, $4.3 million dollar contract with AT&T to service the 911 call center. Records show the council approved the contract September 28, 2011.
Griggs says he asked the city manager T.C. Broadnax for a copy of the contract Saturday, but he hasn't received it just yet. He wants to know if the contract expired.

City spokeswoman Sana Syed though says the contract expires this September, and that the city is in the process of requesting bids for a new contract. CBS11 asked her if there was a one year renewal of the deal, but as of Tuesday evening, we had not heard back from the city.

"Since this is a real failure in the 911 call center, it's important for us to look at the contract to make sure we're getting all the service out of the contract to keep the 911 center up and running and performing where it should be," says Griggs.

The councilman says when he and Councilman Adam Medrano, the Public Safety Committee Chairman, went to the 911 call center Friday night, they noticed something that raised questions: "I noticed that our own CIS team wasn't there and I also noticed AT&T, which we have a service contract with, wasn't there."

Griggs says four engineers from T-Mobile were in the call center.

• A Third Day Of Call Spikes

On Tuesday, the city announced in a newsletter that in addition to March 6 and March 11, its call center also received an increase in the number of abandoned calls on Christmas Eve.  But Syed says it wasn't as bad a problem on Christmas Eve as it was on March 6 and 11, but Griggs says it was still bad.

• Staffing Concerns

In addition to questions about the AT&T contract, the Councilman says he has two other concerns about the 911 call center: staffing and technology. To prevent future problems, the city added a total of twelve 911 operators to the call center each day. But city officials have refused to say how many 911 call-takers there are during each shift out of unspecified public safety concerns.

"With the 911 call center, I'm concerned there is too much secrecy about staffing levels, about how many people there are," says Griggs.

Additionally, he says city administrators have told council members not to discuss specific numbers of call-takers. But the city is budgeted for 79 full-time 911 call-takers.

Griggs says the council must know more information about how many are needed for this crucial, yet stressful job.

"Were we relying too much on overtime? That's one of those jobs you don't want someone to do too much overtime. That's why we need to know where we are now in terms of staffing versus our target and is there a gap? Is 80 enough? Is the issue we're not hiring enough?"

On Monday, the city announced 23 percent of its 911 call takers called out sick Sunday. Syed says that's not uncommon. The city said the percentage of 911 calls unanswered within ten seconds fell from its goal of 90 percent to nearly 82 percent.

• Technology

Griggs also raised concerns about the 911 call center's technology.

He posted Saturday on Facebook: "The 911 call system at the City of Dallas appears to be a 2003 ANALOG system that was last patched in 2014. The 911 call system is at end-of-life although support is still available."

On Tuesday, Griggs told CBS11 "That's a big concern and that's what I learned from interviewing people in the 911 call center about the start of our technology there."

The councilman says he emailed Broadnax to see if what he heard was accurate, but he says he hasn't heard back yet. Griggs says he believes the long-term solution is for the city to buy a new digital IP-based routing 911 call system.

He calls the city's 911 call system "one more piece of Dallas infrastructure that is crumbling."

During a conference call Friday afternoon with reporters, city officials said they are now considering the Next Gen 911 system, but they haven't requested proposals yet.

• More Details About The Problem

The city says intermittent problems started happening back in September, but intensified this month. On Christmas Eve, March 6 and March 11, the city says the problem came when T-Mobile cell phone customers called 911 and were placed on hold. When many of them didn't hear the a message telling them to stay on the line, they hung up in frustration.

Syed says the T-Mobile phones were then automatically re-dialing 911 without the caller realizing it. In addition, Syed says the T-Mobile customer was also calling back 911. At the same time, the city says a 911 operator was trying to reach the same caller who had previously hung up, a city protocol to make sure the person needs help.

But when someone dials 911, their cell phone phone can't be interrupted by another call, which is why the city says its operators couldn't reach callers.

Making matters worse, the city says the 911 operators received incorrect information about the T-Mobile callers who had hung up, and so there were cases in which the operators were calling the wrong people multiple times. All the while, the phone lines were tied up, not just for T-Mobile customers, but customers of every phone provider.

When the city experienced its spike in calls March 6, there were 360 911 calls placed on hold during the 3-11 p.m. shift. That's the same night David Taffet says he tried to get through to a 911 operator but was delayed. Even though he eventually got through and paramedics transported his husband to the hospital, Taffet says he died hours later.

Five days later on March 11, the city says there were 422 911 calls placed on hold during the 3-11 p.m. shift.

That night Bridget Alex says her six month old son Brandon's babysitter had called 911 three times and failed to reach an operator, even after being on hold for 31 minutes during the final call. Alex says when she arrived home, her babysitter was still on the call, so she drove her son to the hospital.
Less than two hours after the first 911 call, her son died.

• More Details On Solutions

In addition to increasing staffing, Syed says AT&T, which maintains and services its 911 call center, updated its infrastructure to allow more callers to hear the recorded message not to hang up if a 911 operator doesn't pick up within ten seconds and they're placed on hold.

What hasn't changed, according to Syed, is that the city can handle 100 live 911 calls at any given time. Syed also says T-Mobile has also adjusted its network. Every time a T-Mobile cell phone customer dials 911, there's an identifier that shows up in the call center's log with the caller's name, phone number, and their location.

The city says T-Mobile has now added identifiers and will recycle them after 12 hours instead of four hours. Syed says this should eliminate T-Mobile from calling the wrong people back.

In addition, Syed says T-Mobile has disabled its fail-safe, in which its cell phones would automatically call back 911 without the callers realizing it.
Despite all this, the city says it's still trying to figure out the source of the problem. The city says only T-Mobile's network had these troubles.

When asked why only T-Mobile had to make adjustments to its network, and not the other cell phone providers, Griggs answered, "That's an excellent question."

The city has said T-Mobile told them they have a large share of customers in Dallas.

• What's Next

Syed says the council's Public Safety Committee will be briefed on the issue Monday.

Griggs says the public needs a full accounting by the city what happened. "There has been a loss of trust by the public with the 911 call center. There's quite a lot of concerns."

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