Emergency dispatchers based out of San Francisco on Monday are slated to testify about staffing shortages and untenable workloads.
The move comes after dispatchers were overwhelmed with calls during April's massive PG&E outage in San Francisco and amid complaints about overall emergency response times.
Currently, dispatchers in the city by the bay answer roughly 80 percent of 911 calls within 10 seconds, but they are hoping to bump that number to 90 percent, which is the national standard, according to the San Francisco Examiner.
Emergency officials are also currently testing new technology that could improve ambulance response times and aid 911 dispatchers, according to the San Francisco Examiner. The new technology would allow dispatchers to track ambulances using GPS. Dispatchers currently use radio communication to determine where a unit is.
Dispatchers plan to testify in front of the Board of Supervisors Government Audit and Oversight Committee. They are expected to ask for a budget to hire 45 new employees for next year.
