| |
Public Safety Director Search Begins
Posted 09-24-1997
As you have probably read by now in a daily paper, Westmoreland County's Public Safety
Director Richard Hunger has retired. Mr. Hunger served the citizens of Westmoreland County
with distinction for many years and helped build our 911 center into one of the premier
centers in the Commonwealth. Our 911 center handles a tremendous number of calls each day
and though you never read about the good news, the successes greatly outweigh any
failures.
Since Mr. Hunger has announced his
retirement, the County Commissioners have decided it would serve our needs if we conducted
a thorough search for the best possible replacement. The responsibilities of the position
are so great, we cannot afford to allow the search to be mired in politics. To conduct the
search we have decided to hire an outside firm that could conduct an extensive effort. We
did not feel conducting a search just using our internal Human Resources personnel would
be as effective, because our own personnel all have other duties that would not allow them
to commit the time necessary for such a search. Who the search firm is has not been
decided, although we have talked to several firms and the prices for such a search range
from $5,000 to about $20,000.
While we are conducting a search for Mr.
Hunger's successor, we have talked to Phoenix Management Services Inc. of Chadds Ford,
Pennsylvania about conducting a study of our emergency management operations. The timing
is good because we are starting a new chapter in our service to the citizens of our
county, and it will be helpful to a new director to have an objective third-party
evaluation of the situation he or she will be entering. We will be negotiating a price for
the study but I'm hoping to keep it in the range of $40,000 to $50,000. Also, Phoenix
Management may conduct the search for a permanent director so we could possibly roll that
effort into the total package of their work. The price may seem high but the critical,
life-saving issues related to emergency management and the operation of our 911 center
make it imperative we continue to improve our operation.
Phoenix Management's proposed study would
evaluate our organizational structure, strategic plan, work flow analysis, performance
standards and work load analysis, our training practices, the telephone system,
county-wide addressing, equipment infrastructure, adherence to regulations, and external
communications with fire, police and EMS groups. Without doubt this study will help us
prepare for the challenges of serving a slowly growing population spread over 1,000 square
miles.
Two issues that we all know must be
resolved are the issue of addressing and the issue of service for a broad range of
telephone prefixes that often cross county borders. We do not always receive the
cooperation necessary with either issue, yet seem to bear responsibility when problems
arise. There are so many municipalities with duplicate or nearly duplicate street names
and while we hope that duplication ends, the issue is out of our control. Also we have a
large number of rural addresses that only have an RD number and some of those are served
by an Apollo or Leechburg post office from Armstrong County.
The telephone companies also don't help the
matter because they refuse to shift telephone prefixes so they don't cross county borders.
With the change of area codes on the horizon that will inconvenience thousands of
customers, you would think the telephone companies would try to cooperate with an
important public safety issue. They could eliminate prefixes from being used across county
borders, so that the origination of a call will never be confusing for a call-taker.
Stay tuned as Westmoreland County works to
improve the operation of our Department of Public Safety. While it may take some time, we
want to find the best possible candidate for the Director's job and we will also get a
professional evaluation of the state of our operation. |
