DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts says "Don't blame 911 operators" for flaws in FDNY/NYPD Call Taking System

Union blames says Unified Call Taking System is not unified. Calls for City Council audit and Federal Investigation.

(New York, N.Y.) - District Council 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts and leaders of the local union that represents the 911 call takers, dispatchers and supervisors testified today before a before a joint City Council oversight hearing examining the FDNY/NYPD Unified Call Taking System.

Since the installation of the Unified Call Taking System, recent reports of fire-related tragedies have focused on human error and placing the blame on NYPD 911 call takers, dispatchers and supervisors. In testimony today, leaders of District Council 37 and Local 1549, which represents the NYPD 911 operators, insisted that the real problem lies with the fact that the unified call taking system which was supposed to reduce emergency response times and improve the City's capacity to coordinate multi-agency responses to emergencies is flawed.

DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said, "I will state for the record that the problems reported in the media about delays in dispatching and mistakes in dispatch reports have nothing to do with DC 37 members. All of the shortcomings that have led to this very dangerous situation have to do with changes put into place by City Hall. All of these changes were done with little or no consultation with our union or the DC 37 members who know and operate the system. The culture of mistrust of the rank and file employees must stop. In the past, these practices have led to waste of our taxpayers' dollars, but now this mistrust is putting the public safety at risk.

"The Emergency Transformation Communication System was announced over six years ago as a way to reduce redundancies and reduce response time. I am here to tell you that the transformation has failed," Roberts added.

Alma Roper, Executive Vice President of DC 37's NYC Clerical-Administrative Local 1549, said, "In recent weeks, a rash of incidents involving delayed response time have resulted in a misleading focus on human error when, in fact, the focus should be on a Unified Call Taking System that is unified in name only. FDNY and NYPD recently made modifications to that system, yet, the problems today are the same ones that became apparent in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001, which sparked efforts to facilitate communication between New York's premier emergency response agencies. Unfortunately, the City still has work to do in that department."

DC 37 Assistant Associate Director Henry Garrido gave testimony attributing the problems with the failed system to "a dysfunctional process in both the procurement policy and the implementation of new technologies" he called "both shocking and disheartening." Recounting the process that lead to the City's awarding of a $380 million contract to HP, Garrido noted "it was later discovered that the Canadian government sued HP for failure to properly complete a similar large project. Compounding this waste of taxpayers dollars, Garrido noted that "Some programmers for HP were getting paid over $200 per hour while programmers employed by the City of New York are paid $50 plus benefits."

Pointing to the recent fire-related tragedies, Garrido said, "The entire fault lies with outside contractors, management's slipshod oversight of those contracts and the culture of mistrust that the Bloomberg Administration has for anyone outside their small circle of appointees."

Charging that the Administration "has been spending like a drunken sailor on contracting out work to out-of-state contractors using H1 visa workers, DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts issued a call for a federal investigation into this matter and asked the City Council to have a thorough audit of the process.

The City Council Joint Hearing was held by the Fire and Criminal Justice Committee, chaired by City Council member James Vacca; the Technology in Government Committee, chaired by Council member Gale Brewer; and, the Public Safety Committee, chaired by Council member Peter Vallone, Jr.

District Council 37 is New York City's largest public employee union, with 125,000 members and 50,000 retirees.