By Emily Schettler, Iowa City Press-Citizen
Original publication date: Nov. 13

Iowa City, Iowa — More than four months after its opening, the Joint Emergency Communications Center still is experiencing technical and operational problems, but local law enforcement officials say that doesn’t have them concerned.

The communications center went live in late June and has since served as the dispatch center for all of the area’s emergency calls. Previously, Iowa City and the county each had their own dispatch systems.

Iowa City Police Chief Sam Hargadine said one reason problems are occurring now is that the nature of the software made it difficult to test before it went live.

“Unfortunately, they didn’t have a lot of time to test it in a test environment,” Hargadine said. “It doesn’t work the way it should and so that’s why they’re talking with the vendor.”

Local agencies have received some complaints from the public, Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek said.

There have been instances of dropped calls and inaccurate reporting of call times, he said.

Pulkrabek said there have been software problems and operator errors.

“Anytime you have a software change like that, you’re going to have issues to work through,” he said.

Issues with call processing time, the amount of time it takes dispatchers to take information from the call party and contact the fire department, has been one main concern for Iowa City Fire Chief Andy Rocca.

“What we’ve experienced recently was inaccurate call processing times,” Rocca said. “The data at this point, from my standpoint, is flawed. We don’t have an accurate way to measure how long those components of response time are taking.”

Rocca said he hasn’t seen huge discrepancies in overall call time, but the amount of time it has taken to solve the software problems has been frustrating.

“I’m a little frustrated with the time it’s taken with the software issues as well as finding a remedy to them in a timely fashion,” Rocca said. “I’m committed to (JECC) but it’s time to fix some of the problems so we have clean data to analyze.”

Rocca said it’s important to have accurate information to ensure the best possible service and to provide for the department’s accreditation process.

“It’s a small factor in accreditation,” Rocca said. “If we say we’re going to be on the scene in seven minutes and 30 seconds 90 percent of the time, we need to be able to track all those response time components.”

For local law enforcement and emergency response agencies, the switchover from analog to digital radios also has taken longer than expected.

The transition was scheduled for the beginning of October, but has been pushed back, and testing on the new system continues.

“Obviously, when you have a system this big and complicated, things like that are to be expected,” Pulkrabek said.

He said about 50 radios are being tested right now to fix any bugs before everyone moves on to the new system.

Pulkrabek and Hargadine said they are unsure when the new radios will go live.

Pulkrabek said that despite some setbacks, he thinks the transition is going well.

“I think we’ve come a long way, and absolutely there’ve been improvements,” he said. “It’s a huge change; it’s not like you can just go flip a switch and have everything running perfectly.”

Posted with permission of the Iowa City Press-Citizen.