Audit: Salt Lake County 911 System Inefficient

[qlajlu]

KSL News Story

SALT LAKE CITY -- In the past, KSL News has reported on problems with the Salt Lake Valley Emergency Communications Center (VECC) and why Utahns who call 911 are often put on hold, get a busy signal or have their call go unanswered. Utah Lawmakers took a look for themselves and agree there are problems.

The state audit says Salt Lake County's 911 system is inherently inefficient and leads to delays in law enforcement response times.

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[Observer1]

While there are some problems, the 'audit' itself was flawed.

What many of the press stories didn't reveal was the statistics used were based on 40 calls out of well over 200,000.

Those 40 calls were tracked and followed up on, and of those 40, 8% had the possibility of delay that would have caused harm or threatened life or property.

Now some media outlets are trying to say that it's a "much larger number" when you take 8% of over 200,000 vs 40, however the sample size is too small to make that leap.

I also wonder a bit why there was no mention of UHP's dispatch center, or the fact that University of Utah police currently lack 911 capability and have all their 911 calls routed to SLCPD, who then transfer them.

And of course that doesn't even address cell phones and the constantly shifting city limits from city to city that the legislature so generously created by forcing unincorporated SL County to vanish.

Always good to talk about possible solutions, just think this 'audit' may have been a bit slanted.