Commissioners proclaim National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week

Highland County commissioners Terry Britton, David Daniels and Brad Roades proclaimed the week of April 12-18 as National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week in Highland County during their Wednesday, April 15 meeting.

Accepting the proclamation were representatives of the Highland County Sheriff’s Office, including 911 coordinator and communications supervisor Sergeant Scott Miller; Chief Deputy Jennifer Schinkal; communications supervisor Lieutenant Vincent Antinore; and dispatchers Andrea McKeever and Jami Rigsby.

According to www.npstw.org, “Every year during the second week of April, the telecommunications personnel in the public safety community are honored. This weeklong event, initially set up in 1981 by Patricia Anderson of the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office in California, is a time to celebrate and thank those who dedicate their lives to serving the public. It is a week that should be set aside so everyone can be made aware of their hard work and dedication.”

Miller shared some of the county’s 911 statistics for 2025 with commissioners in honor of this week, including that the HCSO’s communications division “completed 471 hours of training at a cost of $5,850” last year.

For 911 data, Miller said that the county received a total of 15,823 calls, as he gave a breakdown of the types of calls and the departments dispatched.

The county received 11,098 wireless calls; 1,424 voice over internet calls; 1,041 landline calls; 939 abandoned calls; and 19 text messages.

“We're at a 99% rating with getting the calls answered within 10 seconds,” Miller said. “Our busiest day the week was Thursday for ’25, with 2,345 calls coming in on Thursdays for the whole year. Our busy hour of the day was the 2 p.m. hour, and our busy time frame for 2025 was 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

“We dispatched 16,150 law enforcement calls, 7,253 EMS calls and 1,521 fire calls last year out of the dispatch center.”

Miller also provided an update on the county’s targeted time frame for joining the state’s Next Generation-911 system.

According to the Ohio Department of Administrative Services, “Governor Mike DeWine made the adoption of NG9-1-1 across Ohio a priority of his 2024-2025 Executive Budget to improve emergency response times and ultimately save lives. With a funding mechanism in place, the State of Ohio executed a contract with ComTech to build a NG9-1-1 Core Service system which will include a Solacom Guardian call handling option. The Ohio Academic Resources Network (OARnet), under the administration of The Ohio State University along with the Ohio Department of Higher Education, is building out the Emergency Services Internet Protocol Network (ESINet) to connect all Ohio 9-1-1 centers. The network will be capable of connecting calls, texts, and other forms of media from the public to 9-1-1 PSAPs.”

“We had a kickoff meeting last Thursday, and there's a lot of work that I'm going to have to get done to be prepared,” Miller said. “We're looking at a September time frame to join. Also, we're looking at doing the CentralSquare and the ESINet about the same time, so that we only have one down time.” 

The county currently contracts with CentralSquare for their 911 software system.

Miller added that he will also need to coordinate with Highland County Engineer Chris Fauber’s office as they prepare for the 911 upgrades.

“One of the biggest things that they stress is the GIS [Geographic Information System], the county GIS, is very, very vital for the Next Gen location, based on how the call will come in,” Miller said. “We'll have to come up with a plan with the county engineer to be able to get updates into the 911 system when they make updates. That's a very important piece that we'll have to keep updated with.”

After hearing Miller’s report, Britton read the proclamation, in which commissioners “declared its respect for the recognition of 911 telecommunicators as first responders and thanked them and other responders for their heroic and lifesaving role in public safety.”

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