Boone County 911 falls short of answer time goals

Imagine calling 911 in an emergency and your call isn’t picked up right away.

Numbers ABC 17 News obtained from Columbia/Boone County Joint Communications show that is a reality for some callers.

Joe Piper with Joint Communications said as of right now, the 911 call center isn’t meeting the goals set for answering emergency calls.

“In 2013, we established a goal to improve our responsiveness to the public by following the National Fire Protection Association’s (NFPA) recommendations for answer time,” Piper said.

The NFPA standard says 95% of 911 calls should be answered within 15 seconds, and 99% of calls should be answered within 40 seconds. But last year, 88% of calls were picked up within 15 seconds, and 96% got answered within 40.

But what does that actually mean?

Breaking it down, there were an average of 6,747 calls to 911 each month last year. That means 778 of those calls rang for more than 15 seconds. And another 260 people waited nearly a minute for an answer.

When seconds can feel like an eternity in an emergency, it’s something Piper knows needs to be improved.

“We know we’re not reaching our goals and it’s something we continuously work on,” he said.

But these are not requirements; rather, they are standards Boone County Joint Communications sought out to improve themselves.

Piper said a big reason why the response time isn’t up to par is the sheer lack of people to answer the phones.

“We’re still trying to fill vacancies and get qualified employees in here who will stay with us, but we also need space for them,” he said.

Voters passed a tax back in 2013 that helped fund the new 911 center as well as 10 more employee hires, bringing the total number of employees to 39.

Three of those employees started Monday, which leaves six vacancies. But Piper said they can’t fill those until they move to the new 911 center.

“We want to increase the number of folks we have to answer 911 calls and provide more education to the public to reduce the number of 911 calls we receive,” Piper explained. “These two things will help our response time.”

Despite the unmet goals for answer time, Boone County Joint Communications is the only 911 center in the state of Missouri to be accredited in both medical and fire excellence.