TRUMBULL CO. Officials in dispute on 911 calls

Trumbull 911 says they don't have enough staff.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- More than 20,000 emergency 911 calls are made from cellular phones each year in Trumbull County and no one wants to answer the phone.
Trumbull County and Ohio State Highway Patrol officials are at odds as to who should be responsible for answering cell phone emergency calls.
The dispute centers on where 911 calls picked up by new T-Mobile cellular towers calls will be routed.
All the other towers route calls to the highway patrol, which wanted the responsibility of answering them when Trumbull County's 911 system was designed 10 years ago.
Then, most cell phones were attached to automobiles. Now, they can be in the hands of people calling from anywhere, and the highway patrol wants to transfer the calls.
About 70 percent of the cell phone 911 calls these days have nothing to do with road problems handled by the highway patrol, said Lt. George Williams, commander of the Southington post, which serves Trumbull County.
After the patrol answers the calls, often they are transferred to Trumbull County 911, where callers have to explain their emergencies again.
"You have minutes wasting there," Williams said.
Too much to handle
But Trumbull County officials say the additional call volume could be more than they can handle, especially after the layoffs that rocked all county departments earlier this year.
"I'm dead set against it," said 911 director Tim Gladis. "It will be difficult to double the call volume without the additional staff."
Trumbull County 911 answers 20,000 calls per year from regular phones with 21 employees. Six workers have been laid off.
The highway patrol is even more shorthanded, Williams said. The dispatcher who takes 911 cell phone calls also answers the phone, talks to troopers in the field and mans the reception desk, he said.