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The Southampton Village Police dispatch center. KITTY MERRILL
After a year of requests, the Southampton Village Board hired new public safety dispatchers. KITTY MERRILL
Close to a year after a first request for additional staff, and more than two months after Southampton Village Police Public Safety Dispatchers PBA President Michael Reid wrote the Village Board telling board members that their failure to fully staff the department was creating a dangerous situation, the board held a special meeting on September 3, hiring two new dispatchers. Earlier this month they hired a dispatcher, not long after an earlier hire quit.
George Carentz and Christian Bobinski were both hired on September 3; Alfred Callahan was hired during an August 25 board meeting. The starting annual salary for the Public Safety Dispatcher 1 title is $49,194.95.
In a statement announcing the new hires, a quote attributed to Mayor Jesse Warren reads, “Public Safety Dispatch Units across Long Island could all use additional help right now, and we are happy to increase the size of our team by 30 percent … Public safety and health in Southampton Village is a top priority for me, and we are strong supporters of our law enforcement community. We wanted to thank all of public safety dispatchers and SVPD for their hard work, especially since the pandemic.”
Inexperienced new staff members need between three and four months to train, but these hires all have some experience. “They’re not green,” Mr. Reid said. While each will need some level of training, he anticipates that within a month to six weeks, the department will finally be fully staffed with two dispatchers around the clock, plus one extra dispatcher.
Offering a vote of “no confidence” in the mayor last month, the Village Police PBA listed the delay in hiring dispatchers among the reasons for the vote and the request that Mr. Warren step down as police commissioner. Unless someone else is designated, the mayor automatically becomes commissioner.
State law requires all Public Service Answering Points be staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by a minimum of two qualified dispatchers at one time. The dispatch under the Southampton Village Police Department is a PSAP, and receives funding from the county to operate as such.
The minimum number needed is 10 dispatchers plus two supervisors. The department was staffed at 11 last year, with enough dispatchers for each squad plus one extra to fill a shift in case one person is off or sick. Then one dispatcher retired and another resigned.
With just nine members of the radio operators department throughout the summer, one full-time slot was filled continually with overtime, Mr. Reid said.
Then, last month, a family member of one dispatcher fell ill, bringing the total down to eight. “Everyone stepped up, that shows the character of people here” Mr. Reid said. But that meant people working 30 to 40 hours of overtime per week and vacations canceled. With the new hires, the PBA president said, “We’ll just have about three weeks left of that … October’s a nice month for people to enjoy some time off.”
The recent hires brings the department to 12. Throughout the year of requests, followed by pleas, Mr. Reid said he didn’t receive any response from the mayor. On Thursday, however, he said the mayor called to inform him of the hires and “to let us know he supports us.”
According to Mr. Reid, in 2019, dispatchers answered 57,524 phone calls, and 2,270 emergency 911 calls, dispatching 18,881 calls for service between the Southampton Village Police, ambulance and fire department, as well as North Sea and Bridgehampton fire departments. “That averages 163 phone calls and 51 calls for service per day,” Mr. Reid said in June.
