St Louis City Dispatcher Shortage

[Starcom21]

The memo shows there were not enough dispatchers to cover all six of the city's police districts. As a result, districts had to share the radio frequency with other districts.

Memo asks St. Louis police officers to limit some duties due to dispatch shortage

An internal memo distributed to St. Louis police officers—and obtained by the FOX Files—reveals there were not enough dispatchers in the city this past Saturday evening.

fox2now.com

 

[WingnutStl]

Unfortunately this is nothing new. I worked as a communications supervisor for the SLMPD in the mid 80's - early 90's and there was always plenty of overtime available....to the point that everyone was burned out. It has only gotten worse since then. St. Louis County has the same problem, although it is not in the news as much.

Low pay and the job itself limits quality candidates from applying. I left SLMPD for St. Louis County in 1991 (more money) and left the county in 1998 and doubled my salary in a different line of work. No weekends and holidays, no shift work, different kind of stress.

The job was fun back then and there were lots of dedicated dispatchers but things are not the same today.