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HomeMy WebLinkAbout11-15-17 Information and Technology & Health and Public Safety c� pU TA 8� U C W PEACE y ■ 1865 OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK KAREEMAH FOWLER,CITY CLERK INFORMATION & TECHNOLOGY NOVEMBER 15, 2017 5:00 P.M. HEALTH AND PUBLIC SAFETY JOINT COMMITTEE MEETING Committee Members Present: Tim Scott, Jo M. Broden, John Voorde, Charles Barbour (citizen member) Committee Members Absent: Karen White, Gavin Ferlic, Dr. David Varner, Randy Kelly, Oliver Davis Other Council Present: None Other Council Absent: Regina Williams-Preston Others Present: Kareemah Fowler, Graham Sparks, Bob Palmer Presenters: Ray Schultz, Steve Cox, Dan O'Connor, Santiago Garces Agenda: PSAP Update IT Items Information and Technology Committee Chair Tim Scott called to order the joint Committee meeting at 5:01 p.m. He introduced members of the Committees and proceed with the items on the agenda. PSAP Update Ray Schultz, Interim Executive Director of PSAP with residence at 3121 Brunswick Square Drive, Mishawaka, stated, Over the last month, I've done a lot of wandering around the facility and paying attention to the dispatchers answering calls. I've been talking to the dispatchers to hear their concerns and what all they are having problems with. We have been doing a lot of data collection and analytics. In fact, I have a meeting this Friday with the City to help with some of the data and analytics. We want to get as much data as we can so we can piece it out into a good report to know exactly where we stand. We are doing well with call processing. We have analytics in our Fire and EMS software that allows us to pull a lot of different numbers. The most important number that comes out of that is the time between answering the phone and the time the fire or police are dispatched. From the analytics, on the Fire and EMS side,we find we 455 County-City Building•227 W.Jefferson Boulevard•South Bend,Indiana 46601 Phone 574-235-9221 •Fax 574-235-9173•TDD 574-235-5567•www.SouthBend[N.gov JENNIFER M.COFFMAN BIANCA TIRADO JOSEPH MOLNAR CHIEF DEPUTY/DIRECTOR OF DEPUTY/DIRECTOR OF POLICY ORDINANCE VIOLATION CLERK OPERATIONS fall within the national average. We are less than one hundred and twenty(120) seconds on the EMS side and less than ninety (90) seconds on the Fire side. Where we have been struggling is getting our streets and locations to validate in our GIS software. We have been meeting with folks from GIS from all of the different entities to identify common issues to address and fix them. There has been a lot of finger pointing as to why we are in the situation we are in. The New World folks don't want to take any responsibility whatsoever, and our team has been fed to the sharks on this deal. They were given a huge document to work off of and there really haven't been any boots on the ground from the New World folks on training. The most important piece of CAD is GIS,hands down. They haven't been very responsive to addressing our concerns. He continued, That being said, we've had a representative from New World for three (3) days this week who is analyzing our systems top to bottom, front to back. She is helping us identify some opportunities and risks within the center. She is doing a comprehensive analysis of exactly the way we do business and where we are falling short so we can improve. In the past,the center has had people come in to do training at various times. This analysis is all inclusive to all aspects of the function of the center. We have taught our supervisors and the supervisors are now training their own folks. If we can shave forty-five (45) seconds,that is a big deal for us. During the build time for our software folks,there wasn't a lot of continuity. We have a huge call center but we were also tasking those same workers to build the large data base. So we had a few people sporadically building a database. We are addressing our response plans and how things are built because when you start throwing stuff at a data base,the more it has to sort,the longer it takes, which increases the chance of error. Some of it is complicated by necessity, and some of it is over complicated that we can fix. We've identified the different complexities. With more time, we will get better. Right now we are sitting, on average, at about three (3) minutes from call received to out the door. It is about a minute and a half of interrogating callers and a minute and a half of street validations. We do have some room for improvement. The good news is that once the team gets better, we see that immediately. Our GIS team is being very responsive to spotting errors in street validation. We have a lot of good teamwork from many different agencies working to solve these issues we face. Committee Chair Scott stated, One (1) of the concerns we have had since the beginning of this is the street validation and even City validation because I know there is a 711 Forest Avenue in South Bend and also a 711 Forest Avenue in Mishawaka. Ms. Schultz replied, Our folks have been in only their respective agency so the question `What city are you in?' was not a common practice before. That is now fully integrated into our CAD. Committee Chair Jo M. Broden asked, So how are you driving your cross-training between all the different channels like Police, Fire and EMS? Mr. Schultz replied, We are tackling that in a couple of different ways. First is the immersion therapy with folks already there. So we are scheduling times for trainers to sit with our folks until they are cleared for a specific agency. However right now it is still specific agencies. Someone could be cleared on Mishawaka you may not be cleared on South Bend. We are building a system to address that. We are way too far into this system to not have enough people doing everything. It now turns into a chicken or the egg situation. We have new people that are training 2 on systems before people that have worked there for a long time are training on those new systems. So the people that have worked there for a long time are wondering why others are getting the opportunity to train on systems before they do. I decided to put our new people in those positions so they can relieve the senior people to then have the senior employees to take time to learn something else. We are training the new people to take over the existing people's spot, so that the more experienced employee has time to learn another system. Committee Chair Scott stated, I would like to see everyone's name, position, and the time-line of their cross-training. That would give me a peace of mind more than anything on this. Committee Chair Broden followed up, That was kind of my thought coming into this a year ago. Mr. Schultz replied, Everything revolves around training. I've done twenty-four(24) years in the Mishawaka Fire Department and my second year on the Department I started teaching EMT School to all of our on-duty guys. I've taught certification-level stuff and education is my forte. One (1)thing we did not have before were the policies and procedures to train off of. Right now the way we do our working groups is we present policies and procedures, five (5) at a time, we review then during the week, we come back in and sit down with the stakeholders and review. After we clean those up we go to the floor and train on them. The first stuff is the low-hanging fruit. Bill Thompson from the Sheriff s Department has been very supportive in this endeavor. Steve Cox, South Bend Fire Chief for the City of South Bend with offices at 1222 S. Michigan Street, stated,Ray hit the nail on the head on the Fire side. The Police Department has a completely different need from the dispatch center. The two (2) different services lend themselves to this process differently. It is not that the Police Department is behind the Fire Department,they are just completely different needs. Theirs is certainly more complicated than the Fire and EMS system. I want to reinforce that the Police Department has been wonderful in working with the center and explaining their concerns. Committee Chair Scott asked, When will policies be done and when will all the training be done? Is that known right now? Mr. Schultz replied, It is my intent that we will have the majority of our training done by February 1, 2018. The South Bend Police Channel One (1) is the elephant in the room. That channel is incredibly busy and that is more intimidating. It isn't necessarily harder but certainly more intimidating. Within three (3) months sounds pretty reasonable. On December 5, 2017 we are presenting our plan for new employee training. We also hope to train our supervisors to be trainers as well. Those supervisors handle scheduling, requests, and a number of other responsibilities. We could have a computer program do some of their duties to free up some of their time. Our span of control is not good right now and so we want our supervisors to be out from behind a desk and have our assistant supervisors to have the ability to problem solve and walk around as well. We are addressing the staffing issues with more education and more training. We are also trying to schedule around our busy times. Committee Chair Broden asked, Are there any grievances filed right now? 3 Mr. Schultz replied, Yes,there are two (2). They were both about staffing. One (1) was about the minimum number of dispatchers and having some dispatchers not get breaks. The Operations Board is yet to take action. Chief Cox stated, What we heard at the Operations Board level is, from both the Union and the Administration, that they felt they could hammer out details to an agreement. Committee Chair Broden then asked, What is the timeline on that? Mr. Schultz replied, We are doing it through negotiations. The contract expires on January 2018. We've got a built in clock and we have to have something figured out in the next four(4) to five (5)weeks. Committee Chair Broden followed up, How long is your interim status? Mr. Schultz replied, My intent is January 1, 2018. Committee Chair Broden asked, Who evaluates you? Mr. Schultz replied, My chain of command starts at the Operations Board level. The Operations Board then recommends to the Executive Board. Committee Chair Broden followed up, What is the frequency on that? We all want this to get better and,to me, if we all have an understanding of the plan and route, and everybody is doing their part in contributing,but the reporting element isn't there, it won't get better. Mr. Schultz replied, A message I have conveyed from the very beginning is transparency. I have tried to be, and have been, very transparent through the whole process because I understand three (3) directors in four(4) years means we are in a project that is of the utmost importance.Nobody has a real warm or fuzzy feeling on 58266 Downy Avenue. It is all about deliverables. Chief Cox stated, What has been explained to us about how the Interlocal Agreement was drafted highlights the ultimate decision maker in regards to Mr. Schultz's position is the County Executive Branch. That would be the County Commissioners. You can imagine how confusing this is for the individual that holds Mr. Schultz's position. Sometime next year, we would like to clean up the organization and structure in the Interlocal Agreement. Committee Chair Scott stated, If the responsibility is with the County,they need to do that but we need to be a part of that. Mr. Schultz stated, One (1)thing that has not happened for a while is a quality assurance program. We are implementing that slowly. The people answering the phones haven't been receiving feedback on their phone skills. Our staff is very worried about not answering calls correctly, that will not happen. We are collecting that data now and we will see what needs to improve. We have common errors we have fixed already and it seems to be helping already. 4 Committeemember John Voorde asked, Did I hear correctly that from call to dispatch is about three (3)minutes? Mr. Schultz replied, For Fire and EMS, yes, it is right around three (3)minutes. That is the average. That is everything from somebody not breathing to a car accident evaluation. If it is a cardiac arrest, there are four(4) questions before dispatch. The most critical calls are the quickest. The Police average is four(4) and a half minutes. It's tough with the Police Department though because technically everything an officer initiates is zero (0) seconds. That really messes up the average metric. Committeemember Voorde followed up, The three (3) and four(4) and a half minutes, is that something we've been accustomed to in the past? Chief Cox replied, It is more or less the same. We are comparing apples to oranges. What we are using right now is a completely different algorithm set for interrogating callers. There are certain questions that, if they are answered in a certain way, they immediately trigger a dispatch. While the dispatcher may still be interrogating for three (3)minutes there could still be a squad on the way. We are also implementing a new technology piece called LOQUTION and that will be rolled out soon. Mr. Schultz stated, We are only five (5) weeks into our new CAD system, too. And it took almost two (2)years to fix CAD systems for Mishawaka and South Bend. We are working out bugs every day. Committee Chair Broden asked, What happens if this whole thing goes down? Mr. Schultz replied, Our IT manager is responsible for making sure that doesn't happen and, if it does, we have a protocol to have a back-up center situation. Committee Chair Broden followed up, And how much has the City helped on the IT side of things? Dan O'Connor, Chief Technology Officer for the City of South Bend with offices on the 12th floor of the County-City Building, stated, I've backed out, personally, from the consultant role. We are making available all the resources Ray and the Center needs. The City is involved with the GIS side of things. We work toward finding the one (1) issue that creates other issues. Santiago Garces, Chief Innovation Officer for the City of South Bend with offices on the 12th floor of the County-City Building, stated, We are working with the County and MACOG as well as Mishawaka on the way we do GIS. The requirements have changed over the years and there are tools that we have to help manage that. IT Items 5 Committee Chair Scott then briefly discussed his preferences with the Microsoft Surface and the iPad. There then was brief discussion about having other Councilmembers try out the Microsoft Surface. Committee Chair Scott then asked, When is the projected roll out date for the new City website and the 311 Online option? Mr. Garces replied, We are aiming for around April 2018. The Committee then briefly discussed the in-house use of Dropbox and the preferences of using it. With no further business, Committee Chair Scott adjourned the joint Committee meeting at 6:24 p.m. Respectfully Submitted, Tim Scott, Chairperson 6