PHOTO: Courtesy of WLUK
OUTAGAMIE COUNTY, WI (WTAQ) — A critical service is seeing a shortage of employees in Outagamie County.
The Outagamie County Communications Center currently has 22, 911 dispatchers; including 4 in training. At full staff there should be 31 dispatchers.
“This does cause overtime for our current dispatchers, and sometimes they have to come in early or stay late and their workdays are longer,” said Director of Communications Kati Stahmann.
Stahmann says the Center has been short-staffed for about four years; and they’ve seen an influx lately in people leaving for personal reasons, making the shortage more prevalent now.
To attract employees, the Communications Center is currently running a social media campaign. All you need to apply to be a dispatcher is a high school diploma or equivalent.
“All of our training is on the job,” said Stahmann. “There is no college degree or major that prepares people for this career, so we do our own in-house, on the job, paid training.”
The communications center responds to over 60 police, fire, and EMS services throughout the entire county.
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