Will boost in pay help 911 call taker shortages at KCPD? Raises coming next month
Next month, 911 call takers in the Kansas City Police Department will get a pay raise.
The pay increase, up to $25 an hour, will go into effect May 1. Coupled with a $2,500 hiring bonus, the pay raise takes aim at a persistent problem Kansas Citians have faced when they call 911 — being put on hold and facing long call wait times.
The problem has been discussed for years among city officials, and the police department says it often happens because a large number of calls overwhelms a shortstaffed department.
Last year, The Star reported that KCPD is the only public safety agency in the metro that fails to meet national standards for answering 911 calls. At the time, the Star reported that during the worst month in 2023, about 41% of calls were answered within 15 seconds. National standards call for 90% of calls to be answered within 15 seconds.
As of the last week of April, KCPD is down 25 call takers, according to a training supervisor who is teaching a new recruit class of call takers. A year ago, KCPD had 28 vacancies in its 109-person communications unit.
But even hiring more staff is not enough. It’s just one piece of the puzzle in reducing wait times, she said.
“Our call volumes increased… exponentially from when I started,” said Andrea Khan, a training supervisor for KCPD. “Unfortunately (staffing) has been a struggle not just with our department, but across the whole region.”
911 calls put on hold
Call data tracked by the Mid-America Regional Council shows that the average wait time for an emergency 911 call to KCPD was 36 seconds in March, the most recent data available.
The longest time someone waited during an emergency call was 19 ½ minutes, the data shows. That compares to the longest wait time of just over 21 minutes in March 2024.
Khan said the call system at KCPD is different from other departments in the region. An automatic call distributor feeds the calls to call takers. The 911 emergency calls are taken first in the order they are received, then non-emergency calls are handled.
Not all call takers are dispatchers, so if emergency calls require a response from police or ambulance, the call is forwarded to a staffer who can coordinate with officers.
“Unfortunately, the non-emergency calls may have an extensive wait, because we are answering those 911 calls,” Khan said.
But even calls for emergencies have been met with wait times. The number of calls coming in can begin to stack up against a staff of six to eight call takers on any particular shift, Khan said.
Hiring 25 more call takers would be a start, Khan said, but she would like to see room for the department to approve even more positions. Having enough staff to have at least 8 call takers on each shift would make things more comfortable, she said.
“I would love to be in a position where we could… increase our staffing,” Khan said. “To where we could say, ‘Hey, we’re fully staffed… I could really use this many more people.’”
“But I would love to be able to fill what we’ve got,” Khan said.
More 911 call takers needed
Six call takers in training are on track to graduate May 1, according to Sgt. Phil DiMartino, a KCPD spokesman. After they graduate, they will begin on-the-floor training, where they will get a better feel for daily workflow and will be mentored by fulltime call takers.
Last week, there were nine call takers and dispatchers training on the floor. DiMartino said the department has approved back-to-back recruit classes and training to help make up for low numbers of call takers.
“Thanks to changes our department has made, we are making progress in staffing,” DiMartino said.
One call taker in training, Sheila Witt, 56, said she made the career switch from being a high school teacher. Her daily routine for the past few months has been arriving at 6:30 a.m. for 7 a.m.start, practicing mock calls, and learning Kansas City’s geography.
Witt said the training is extensive, but the most exciting part is the mock calls, she said.
“What I want to remember, whether it’s a common call, ‘I have a flat (tire),’ to, ‘I’ve been shot three times, and I need police officers…’ I just have to remember that that’s why I’m here. I’m here to help,” Witt said.
Witt said the career change has been rewarding, even in the early stages of training.
“Kansas City, we need it, we need the help,” Witt said.
Another call taker about to graduate training in May is Valerie Hughes, 50. She had worked as a call taker and dispatcher in other jurisdictions for seven years.
“It’s just something that I feel I have a calling toward, as far as helping people, being there for somebody in their time of need,” Hughes said.
Anyone interested in becoming a call taker or dispatcher can find more information about open roles on the KCPD website.
Previous reporting by The Star’s Robert A. Cronkleton contributed to this story.
This story was originally published April 24, 2025 at 7:00 AM.
