CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A number of South Texas law enforcement agencies are either looking to hire dispatchers -- or are trying to figure out ways to keep the ones they have.
3NEWS spoke with several departments about their 911 dispatches, who they said deserve more pay and recognition for what they do.
Lori Trevino is one of the dispatchers at the Kleberg County Sheriff's Office. Earlier Monday, Trevino was working a real emergency. A man had a stroke and his passenger had to grab the steering wheel and stop the car. The incident played out along Highway 77 between Kingsville and Bishop.
"It's been quite challenging to hire people," said Kleberg County Chief Deputy Jaime Garza. "As far as dispatch, you know sometimes people leave for a better job, which I can't blame them and the competition is wild."
Stephanie Wright is the Communications Supervisor for the Kleberg County Sheriff's Office. She said the starting pay is $11.95 an hour. Then once employees are certified the pay increases to $14 an hour. Wright said she could use several more dispatchers. But with the low pay being offered she's had to get creative.
"We try to build camaraderie and I try to focus on mental health, and I try to focus on the individualized dispatcher here. So that even though you're here and your pay isn't what it could be, we try to make it more of a family," she said.
Bishop Police Chief Edward Day is closing down his 911 operations, and turning it over to the city of Corpus Christi. He explained that it's tough to hire dispatchers because of the pay and stress.
"On any given time we were probably running actually three dispatchers so that's a lot of overtime and that's a lot of shift work for those employees," Day said.
Low pay or not, dispatchers like Trevino are continuing to man the phones and get help to those who need it as quickly as possible.
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