After hearing about the Lake County 911 department’s persistent staffing issues, the Lake County Council, on Tuesday, approved reappropriating hundreds of thousands of dollars for overtime pay.
The council made the move in a 6-0 vote at the Tuesday morning meeting. Councilman Charlie Brown, D-3rd, was absent.
Lake County 911 will receive $350,000 to sustain its overtime pay through the end of the year. According to council documents, the funds will be moved from protective services and is needed to maintain operations.
“We’re understaffed, and we’re still trying to get a handle on that,” Lake County 911 Executive Director Mark Swiderski previously told the council. “That’s hopefully going to last us through the end of the year.”
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According to Post-Tribune archives, Lake County 911 has 74 employees but can have up to 105. The highest staffing level was in 2018 with 98 employees.
In the past decade, operator salaries have almost doubled, Swiderski previously said, increasing from $12.98 an hour to $23 an hour in training and $24 an hour out of training. Swiderski also said some employees might complete operator training in Lake County before moving to Illinois, where they can make $10 more an hour.
Council Vice President Ron Brewer, D-2nd, and Councilman Randy Niemeyer, R-7th, have both said 911 starting salaries need to increase, which could be done if vacant positions were eliminated. Brewer said that after increasing salaries, they can make additional decisions from there.
According to Post-Tribune archives, on Aug. 27, after a guest at a Food Bank of Northwest Indiana event needed medical attention, calls to 911 went unanswered. A county report obtained by the Post-Tribune showed about 160 calls went through the communications center between 10:15 and 11 a.m., 100 emergency calls and 60 non-emergency.
Scheduled maintenance of the computer-aided dispatch system began at about 10 a.m., and the phone system remained operational. The county’s automated non-emergency artificial intelligence call-handling system also had to be taken offline during maintenance and was back at about 11 a.m.
Lake County Commissioner Mike Repay, D-3rd, previously told the Post-Tribune that staffing issues could’ve exacerbated the Aug. 27 complications.