By DAVE SCHULTZ
Bluffton Police Chief Kyle Randall is a man on a mission: Find some dispatchers.
This summer, the city will be down to five dispatchers when it has slots available for 10. That’s a problem that Randall is trying to resolve.
Attrition has taken its toll, Randall said. For instance, one of the dispatchers has relocated. Another will be on temporary leave. Vacations also factor into the mix.
The personnel shortage is going to put a crimp in the dispatch center’s operations, one that will be filled by bringing officers off the road and putting them in the Police-Fire Building answering phones and directing their fellow officers as needed.
It will also put a strain on the public safety budget as money will have to be moved from the salary line item to the overtime line item.
Randall made a first payment on that last week when he asked the Bluffton Board of Public Works and Safety to transfer $10,000 into the overtime line item.
Randall said, however, he can’t continue to raid the salary line item for the rest of 2022 to pay for overtime for the remaining dispatchers and the officers who will join them. “We’re eventually going to have to ask for an additional appropriation,” Randall said Thursday afternoon.
Randall said the problem is the lack of applicants. Working dispatch for the city of Bluffton is just one of many jobs that continue to be unfilled in a tight labor market.
“I don’t know what it is — the pay, the benefits, or the stress,” Randall said, noting that dispatchers have to be involved in potentially life-and-death situations as part of the job.
The pay for dispatchers recently went up from $16.59 an hour to $18.59 an hour on the bottom end of the pay scale. At the top end, the pay increase as $1 an hour, from $21.50 to $22.50.
Randall waited until a city salary study was completed. That study said the dispatchers’ pay increase was in order, and it was recently approved by members of the Bluffton Common Council.
A “help wanted” ad is running in the News-Banner and other sites trying to find applicants. Applications are available in the clerk-treasurer’s office in City Hall and one the city’s website.
daves@news-banner.com
