Fresno’s police dispatchers are getting immediate raises. How much more will they make?
Fresno’s police dispatchers who field 911 emergency calls from the public will get a significant and immediate pay increase following a unanimous vote Thursday by the Fresno City Council.
The increase is needed to address a disparity in pay discovered by an analysis of salary scales in Fresno and similar large California cities, Mayor Jerry Dyer said. “What we found is not surprising: our dispatchers are overworked and they’re underpaid, and they have been for many years.”
The combination of low pay and high call volumes, Dyer added, “has created a tremendous level of stress within our communications operators that ultimately leads to increased sick leave, increased absences, and also in our dispatchers seeking outside employment” with other agencies where call volumes are less or pay is better.
“Seeing the number of dispatchers leaving has been disheartening, and that has been trending upward for us,” he said.
The new pay scales adopted Thursday represent an average 14% pay raise for dispatchers and a 19% increase for dispatch supervisors, Dyer said. Under the new scheme, pay for dispatchers at the base level will increase the salary from $4,250 per month up to $4,854; at more advanced levels and tenure, the top of the dispatchers’ pay is increasing from $6,703 per month to $6,936 per month.
For dispatch supervisors, the new pay scale will range from $6,590 per month up to $7,973, depending on experience and tenure.
The raises will make Fresno’s police dispatchers the highest-paid in the Central Valley.
The added cost to the city’s budget will be about $1.2 million this year, Dyer said. “But I don’t see it as a cost,” he added. “I think we all stand here today and see it as an investment … in the safety of our citizens.”
The increase is in addition to previously approved raises of 3% each year over a three-year period. Overall, Dyer and Police Chief Paco Balderrama said they expect the new pay scale to help the city retain the dispatchers it already has and to also recruit to fill existing vacancies.
“I’m very confident that what we’ll see in the next six months is an abundance of people applying to be Fresno police dispatchers, both new people and lateral from other agencies,” Dyer said.
Balderrama said the department and dispatchers will also benefit in the coming few years from a new, larger emergency dispatch center – a facility Dyer said is being designed now and is expected to be completed in 2025.
“Right now, if we were to hire all of the dispatchers that we need, they really wouldn’t fit in the current communications center,” Balderrama said.
Still, with about 15 vacancies out of 118 budgeted dispatcher positions in the department, Balderrama said the new pay scale represents “an armament that I have to go out there and be very proactive” in recruiting to fill vacancies.
Boosting public safety
“Dispatchers are first-responders,” Balderrama added. “They are the lifeline between police officers and backup; they are a lifeline between the community and a police officer.”
“They’re also traumatized when they listen to some of the critical incidents that happen on the other end of the phone line,” the chief said. “This job is very difficult. Being a dispatcher has a lot of stress.”
City Councilmembers Mike Karbassi and Garry Bredefeld said the pay increase will serve to improve public safety for residents who call 911 for life-threatening emergencies.
“Every day our dispatchers are fielding 1,200 calls or more, enduring levels of stress unheard of in the vast majority of professions,” Karbassi said. Those workers “are utilizing a very advanced set of skill to provide information to first-responders while also communicating calmly with the caller.”
“We are finally taking the steps necessary to pay them accordingly,” he added.
Bredefeld said the city has had problems “with not having enough dispatchers (and) with having long wait times” for 911 calls to be answered. “That’s unacceptable for all of us who serve our citizens,” he added. “That’s changing with this vote today.”
