Oakland’s 911 emergency call center is facing more oversight from state regulators amid the city’s yearslong failure to bring answering times down to the mandated standard.
In an August 27 letter addressed to Oakland Police Department’s new police chief, Floyd Mitchell, California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) Director Nancy Ward outlines increased monitoring of the city’s beleaguered 911 system.
“I have directed Cal OES staff to schedule monthly update meetings we discussed to track your agency’s progress on improving [Oakland PD’s] answer times,” the letter reads.
Ward does not outline specific benchmarks, though the letter lists emergency call operator hiring, training and retention as focus areas.
Cal OES’ most recent letter comes one month after Oakland missed a deadline to reduce average 911 answer times to the state mandate of 90% of all calls answered within 15 seconds. The agency had threatened to cut funding for Oakland’s call center if it continued to miss the mark, but about a month before the deadline the agency instead wrote it would “take no further action.”
Public Safety Advocate Marleen Sacks said funding cuts may not be a solution, but improvements have been minimal. She wants to know why Cal OES went back on their threat.
“The state has these guidelines that they have established. They said they were going to enforce them. Now they're saying they're not going to enforce them,” Sacks said. “It seems like the entire system is breaking down.”
The agency first sent the city a notice of non-compliance in mid-2023, weeks after the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit broke the story of Oakland having the worst 911 response out of any city in the state.
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One year later, the city’s average answer times are far beyond every other call center in the state. According to the most recent data from June, Oakland's average answering time was 50 seconds — about the same as the next two call centers at the top of the list combined.
Still, there are signs of progress in Cal OES’ most recent figures. After investing $2.5 million dollars into their dispatch center, Oakland’s June average answer time improved by 12 seconds versus the same period last year.
Oakland’s deputy director of services recently told the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit she expects 911 times to be in compliance by fall or winter next year.
