(Cincinnati, OH) - Cincinnati City Council Member Amy Murray has been shadowing workers at the Emergency Communications Center in an effort to educate city leaders about 911 service issues.
The effort began after the death of Kyle Plush, who was trapped in the back of his minivan and called 911 twice, but was never rescued.
Officers dispatched to the scene were unable to locate the 16-year-old Seven Hills student. Murray is attending the National Emergency Number Association conference in Nashville Tuesday alongside city and county 911 staff.
Murray is planning to hear presentations that address best practices in the industry surrounding topics such as new technologies on the horizon, caller location finder software, and quality assurance implementation.
"This conference will give us an opportunity to talk to other 911 groups throughout the region, throughout the United States, and also they have incredible breakout sessions that really talk about the lastest technology in 911 and ECC Centers," said Murray.
Murray said she believes there remains significant issues that need to be fixed at the city's 911 Emergency Communications Center, but she says that starts with having stable leadership.
"Part of what were learning and looking at is we really need to have consistency at the top and part of what were looking at now is what does that look like is that police, is it civilian, you know, how do they work together and looking what at other city's are doing to give us the best example of what's working out there," said Murray.
One change that Murray says has been significant, is 911 Call Center employees no longer have mandatory overtime.
Murray said employees on 12-hour shifts were being forced to work a 16-hour overtime shift a year or more ago. Murray says while overtime shifts are still 16 hours, they are now only voluntary.
To help alleviate this issue, city leaders have recently ordered more funding be provided the Center to hire more staff.