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• 911 centers across the country are experiencing a shortage of dispatchers. It’s affecting many Wisconsin communities, regardless of size or location.
• These shortages make a difficult job harder and shifts even longer. The work is mentally taxing, and that’s amplified when there are fewer people on staff. 
• Who is a good fit for the job? People who can multi-task, stay calm under pressure, talk to strangers easily and handle high emotions.
• Some counties have eased their shortages by boosting pay, focusing on mental health and opening up part-time positions. 
• AI is helping tackle some problems, but it’s not replacing dispatchers.
• A college education isn’t necessary for the job, but Wisconsin’s tech colleges are adding emergency dispatch programs that help people see if the job is for them.

Children love to dress up as firefighters and police officers. They imagine themselves rushing into danger, answering the call when people are in need. 

But how many of them realize they could literally be the one to answer those calls — as a 911 dispatcher?

 “Not many people know about this as a career field,” said Gail Goodchild, emergency preparedness director for Waukesha County, at a Wisconsin Watch virtual panel discussion on Wednesday. “I think about trick or treaters … Nobody walks around with a headset and says, ‘I’m going to be a dispatcher someday.’”

The panel of emergency telecommunications professionals and educators said the low profile of emergency dispatch is one of many reasons that 911 centers across the country struggle to fill openings.

In Wisconsin, rural and urban communities alike are regularly short of dispatchers. Wisconsin Watch reported last year on Brown County’s “relentless” shortage and what the city can learn from successful changes in Waukesha County. This panel, moderated by reporter Miranda Dunlap, continues that conversation by highlighting perspectives and solutions from experts across the state.

“We have a critical, nationwide shortage of 911 professionals,” said Chippewa County Emergency Communications Center Director and longtime dispatcher Tamee Thom, who is also president of WIPSCOM, a board representing 911 professionals across Wisconsin.

Solving the problem, panelists agreed, will require both attracting new dispatchers and supporting those already on the job. They recommend raising awareness about the career, improving pay and working conditions, providing mental health support and technology to reduce burnout, and officially designating these professionals as first responders, in the same category as paramedics, firefighters and police.

Lives on the line

Emergency dispatch work is mentally and emotionally taxing, panelists said. At any moment, a dispatcher must be prepared for everything from talking someone through delivering a baby to responding to an act of violence. 

“It can go from zero to 90 in seconds,” Goodchild said. “One minute you’re talking with your podmate, and then the (phones) are ringing off the hook for … a car accident or, God forbid, an active shooter at the local school.”

Dispatchers must remain calm to gather necessary information, relay instructions —  say, how to perform CPR or deliver a baby — and de-escalate tension if needed. Meanwhile, they’re doing multiple other tasks, including taking notes, using mapping tools to better locate the caller, and talking with law enforcement dispatchers. 

When a call ends, the dispatcher might never find out what happened afterward. Sometimes, they finish a life-or-death call and then pick up a mundane call about trash pickup or parking tickets, sending them on an emotional rollercoaster.

The job only gets harder when 911 centers are shortstaffed. Staff who typically work 8- or 12-hour shifts could have to work 16, Goodchild said. In some cases, they leave work only to clock back in eight hours later. 

“You might have time to go home, maybe tuck in your kids at night. You’re getting a couple hours of sleep … pack your lunch … then get back to work,” Goodchild said. 

But despite the challenges, veteran dispatchers say there’s a reason they’ve stayed in the field for decades. 

Billi Jo Baneck, communications coordinator at the Shawano County Sheriff’s Office, once quit dispatch work to direct events at a wedding venue. 

“I tried to leave … and I came right back,” Baneck said. “It just consumes you.”

What’s working

Waukesha County offers some clues about how to fix the shortage. In 2023, the department had 20 vacancies. By July 2025, it had just two. 

One of the most important changes was to start hiring candidates based on personality rather than specific skills, said Goodchild, who took over as director a year ago. 

“We can teach customer service. We can teach them how to read a protocol, but if they’re coming in with a bad attitude, it really messes up the culture in that environment and adds to the stress.”

The department also conducted a compensation study, which led it to raise the starting wage for dispatchers from around $27 to almost $29.50 to compete with other employers. 

“People were leaving for less stressful jobs … They were going into the private industry because they could get paid better to do less,” Goodchild said. 

Waukesha’s success has caught the attention of emergency telecommunications leaders across the state. Still, Goodchild said, the county’s work isn’t done.

“While we’ve made changes and we’ve seen improvements,” Goodchild said, “we’re still not at full staffing … We have to continue to stay vigilant and identify those gaps and issues before they get to be bigger problems, and remain adaptable in meeting the needs of the center and certainly the communities that we serve.”

Thom agrees. In Chippewa County, her department has created part-time positions for dispatchers who wanted to cut back their schedules, and it’s passed some administrative and training duties to once-retired dispatchers who don’t want the stress of taking calls. 

That kind of “innovative” scheduling is essential, she said. 

“These days, people are really looking for that work-life balance … so I think any way that we can help add to that … I think we’re going to retain staff,” Thom said.

To support dispatchers’ mental health, some departments have created peer support programs for dispatchers and other first responders to supplement existing mental health services. 

Meanwhile, Waukesha County has hired a specialized therapy contractor called First Responder Psychological Services to meet with new hires and check in once or twice a year with every employee. All the company’s staff have worked in public safety, so they understand the specific stresses of the job, Goodchild said.

A role for AI?

Another way departments are easing the burden on overworked dispatchers: artificial intelligence. Waukesha is among the Wisconsin departments that now use an AI agent to answer non-emergency calls. That could include questions about how to pay a parking ticket, or what time the local fireworks show starts. 

“I just want to be clear, because I know everybody’s fear is that you’re going to get an AI agent (when you’re) calling 911: That’s not the case,” Goodchild said. 

That change, Goodchild said, means dispatchers get a little more down time and don’t experience so much of an emotional rollercoaster.

“You’re not going to send a law enforcement tactical team to go get a kitten out of a tree, right?” Goodchild said. “We train our 911 dispatchers at such a high level to provide CPR instructions, childbirth instructions, the de-escalating skills, multitasking skills. Why are you having them focus on a caller that’s calling in about when the fireworks are?”

Some schools and 911 centers are also using AI to train new dispatchers, said Shawano County’s Baneck, who also teaches emergency telecommunications at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. 

Tech colleges step in

Wisconsin’s tech colleges can play an important role in fixing the shortage by raising awareness about the field and helping potential dispatchers figure out whether the job is right for them, panelists said.

Andrew Baus, associate dean of human services at Moraine Park Technical College, helped create the college’s new emergency dispatch certificate program. Baus worked for years as a paramedic, the third generation in his family to work as a first responder. 

“Growing up, the options were always fire or criminal justice. It really never dawned that dispatching was right there with them,” Baus said. Now, he said, he’s trying to show students that dispatch is another “great option.”

To excel in dispatch, a person must multitask and be friendly with strangers, Baneck said. Those people can be hard to find.

“People with customer service experience that are used to angry customers, angry shoppers, (and) people that have been in the food service industry that are used to running back and forth, taking multiple orders … they do really well in this kind of job.”

You don’t typically need certifications to get a job as a dispatcher, Baneck said, noting that departments usually offer a 40-hour basic training in-house or send new hires for training elsewhere. 

But taking those classes in advance can help a person figure out whether dispatch work is right for them, before they ever apply for a job. That, in turn, can reduce turnover.

“Your heart’s got to be all-in to be able to work nights, holidays, weekends, around the clock, serving your community,” said Baneck, who also urges students considering dispatch to contact a 911 center and ask to shadow a dispatcher at work. “This is a good way of knowing whether their heart’s going to be in it or not, or whether they’re going to be capable of doing it.”

Thom agrees. “They see what it’s really like, and not what it looks like on TV,” Thom said. 

Meanwhile, Thom said WIPSCOM is still pushing Wisconsin lawmakers to include dispatchers in newly adopted legislation that lets first responders diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder apply for worker’s compensation benefits. Some states have officially reclassified dispatchers as first responders. Such a change can mean dispatchers qualify for  higher pay, better benefits and even the chance to retire earlier.

“There’s a difference between what we do every day and being a clerical worker. We are part of the emergency services world and are, honestly, the first first responder there,” Thom said. “We will continue to be a thorn in their side … speaking on behalf of our 911 professionals across the state.”

Who you gonna call? Wisconsin 911 dispatchers discuss fixes to national, statewide shortage is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Pay raises and other efforts have done little to ease the 911 dispatcher shortage in Brown County: The county is short more than one in three of its needed dispatchers. 

• Boosting pay isn’t enough to attract and retain dispatchers, experts say – departments must boost morale, get creative with hiring and training and address the mental health toll the job takes. 

• Waukesha County officials made changes that show promise: The county’s 911 center went from over half-vacant to almost fully staffed in two years. 

• Furthermore, advocates support federal legislation that would reclassify all 911 dispatchers as first responders, which would allow dispatchers to access benefits like additional mental health resources.

For years, Brown County has struggled to hire people to answer 911 calls and coordinate responses to emergencies. Its emergency dispatch center was among many that grappled with worsened staffing shortages after the COVID-19 pandemic. 

But as the crisis eases nationwide, major shortages still beset Brown County’s 911 center. Despite past pay raises and other efforts, the county is missing more than one in three of its needed dispatchers. Industry experts say boosting pay isn’t enough to attract dispatchers nowadays. Departments must also boost morale, get creative with hiring and training and address the mental health toll the job takes. 

Waukesha County’s 911 center offers an example of how such measures can help alleviate shortages. It placed a laser focus on employee mental well-being and went from over half-vacant to almost fully staffed in two years.

The Brown County vacancies haven’t impacted how quickly dispatchers pick up the phone when residents dial 911 — employees still answer faster than the national standard recommends. But some county leaders are worried that mistakes will be made if the issue continues.

Only one of the five elected supervisors who helm a committee overseeing the county’s public safety operations answered calls and emails for this story. Supervisor Michael LaBouve, who represents most of the east side of De Pere, told Wisconsin Watch the county is following a plan to address the shortage and solving it is “going to take time.”

“I think we’re all seeing progress, so that’s all I have to communicate about that,” LaBouve said. “I feel good about what’s happening.”

But at 19 employees short, the center tallies more vacancies today than it did several years ago when the county first prioritized the crisis, and some are losing their patience. 

During a public meeting in late May, supervisors aired their frustration at the lack of progress. Dispatchers worked a combined 8,600 hours of overtime so far this year, the department said, and they’ve routinely taken to local government meetings to voice their experiences with stress and burnout. 

“Looking at us to go 60, 70, potentially 80 hours and being called in on the days off and 24/7 is just — it’s mind-boggling,” dispatcher Kirk Parker said during a May meeting. 

Money not the answer?

Staffing shortages have plagued the public safety communications industry for years, but the issue peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 2019 and 2023, about one in four dispatch jobs across the country were vacant, research by the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch suggested. 

There are still “alarming strains” on the industry, but there are recent signs of progress, said April Heinze, chief of 911 operations for the National Emergency Number Association, a national nonprofit of dispatch industry professionals. Research by NENA shows 74% of centers reported having vacant positions in 2025, improved from 82% in 2024. 

However, those improvements aren’t reflected locally. Brown County was short 19 staffers in early August, according to officials, leaving about 35% of the center vacant. 

“Like playing a game of Whack-a-Mole: as quickly as one issue can be addressed, another issue pops up,” Chancy Huntzinger, Brown County’s director of public safety communications, said in a statement to Wisconsin Watch. 

In 2023, in one of its first major efforts to attract and retain staff, Brown County’s Board of Supervisors voted to allocate over $400,000 for raises, retention bonuses and a starting pay boost. Pay now starts at $24.60 per hour, according to the department. 

But the raises haven’t attracted more staff the way county leaders hoped. The center is currently short more employees than when the pay bumps were approved.

“Obviously, pay is not always the most important thing,” Heinze said. Data from the study NENA completed in May showed the largest affliction for dispatchers across the country is burnout. 

Plus, the pay boost didn’t do much to make Brown County stand out to job seekers. The department’s minimum pay is middle-of-the-pack compared to other northeast Wisconsin counties.

Waukesha’s methods show promise

Roughly two hours south, Waukesha County’s 911 agency has made outsized progress in solving its dispatcher shortage. 

When COVID-19 prompted the “Great Resignation,” dozens of dispatchers left Waukesha County Communications Center for higher-paying, lower-stress jobs in public safety technology startups, utility company call centers and other nearby 911 centers.

By October 2023, the center was over half empty. Down over 20 dispatchers, senior staff were forced to pick up call-taking shifts. Staff worked during their time off. Employees regularly picked up back-to-back 12-hour shifts.

“People were starting to feel burnt out, and really it became a snowball effect,” said Gail Goodchild, the county’s emergency preparedness director. “We saw bad attitudes. People didn’t want to come into work. The culture was waning.”

Department leaders realized they needed “all hands on deck” to turn things around, Goodchild said — which they did. According to NENA, they had only two vacancies in July. 

The department did raise pay, bringing the starting hourly wage to $29.44 from roughly $27. This helped, but “wasn’t the leading thing that really turned us around,” Goodchild said. Department leaders also parted with staff they felt “didn’t contribute to a positive culture.” They revamped their hiring and training processes and eased the job requirements. And they introduced an intense focus on dispatchers’ mental health.

Waukesha’s hiring process once heavily relied on CritiCall, a software commonly used in 911 centers that tests potential dispatchers’ skills at multitasking, decision-making, map reading and more. It was determined the test was “weeding people out that would have probably been a really good fit,” said Chris Becker, Waukesha’s communications operations manager. 

“We looked at our numbers in that and determined that there was no correlation between our successful trainees and their CritiCall scores being high,” Becker said. “So we tossed that out.” 

Now, the hiring committee strictly focuses on if a candidate will fit the department’s culture. To ensure people learn the hard skills the exam measures, the department has refined and revamped its training. (Brown County candidates must pass the CritiCall exam to be hired, and the county has not considered changing that, Huntzinger said.)

Waukesha also removed its two-year work experience requirement from the job description to yield more candidates, a move it may soon reverse because it’s seen that having “some of that life experience” is good, Becker said. 

Finally, the county ramped up mental health support to dispatchers. In addition to regular benefits offered in the county’s employee assistance program, it contracted a local mental health provider specializing in first responders. Dispatchers now regularly attend mandatory, confidential 90-minute meetings with the providers, who help employees work through vicarious trauma, a type of trauma common among first responders that compounds when hearing, reading or witnessing distressing events. The grant-funded initiative costs roughly $16,000 for 18 months, Becker said. 

“In case our staff ever gets to a point where they need them, they feel more comfortable to reach out for that help, rather than living with it and burying it and then getting to that point of burnout again,” Becker said.

Brown County has not explored increased mental health support as a method of retention. Staff are encouraged to visit the Public Safety Communications director’s office if they have concerns, and they can receive counseling benefits through the county’s employee assistance program, Huntzinger said. 

“We’re listening to people’s worst days, right? We hang up the phone when the first responders get there, and then it’s left to our imagination to fill in the blanks,” Becker said. “But some of those traumatic calls just don’t go away, and they’ll pop up at random times, or a call three years later will remind you of a call that you took, and you’re right back to that place again. … It’s super important for our staff to have that outlet.”

Looking ahead

After bumping pay, Brown County’s Board of Supervisors requested an independent review of the dispatch center in 2024. The report, delivered in January 2025, made 65 recommendations on how the center could improve operations and its staffing. 

The department has made mixed progress on implementing the recommendations, which vary in complexity, and gives monthly progress updates to the board’s Public Safety Committee.

Per the advice of the consultants, the department introduced employee referral bonuses and now has candidates visit the call center before they interview, rather than after.

The department will also hire “traveling dispatchers” — temporary contractors who will work at the center for six months to cover some shifts, Huntzinger said. She did not answer a question from Wisconsin Watch about how much this will cost the county. 

Next year, the center will introduce a new shift schedule to help it operate more effectively with less staff, Huntzinger said. Though consultants recommended the county’s “unnecessarily complex” schedule be changed immediately, it was delayed following employee pushback. 

The report also suggested the county “substantially expand” partnerships with local education institutions to create a pipeline of candidates. Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, which offers workforce training in emergency dispatch, said it has not been formally assigned  recruitment efforts but it aims to support the region’s workforce needs. 

In the last four years, 84 students have completed programs that certify them in emergency dispatch. Twenty-seven of those included a tour of the Brown County Dispatch Center.

“One of the biggest barriers is awareness,” Jeff Steeber, the college’s associate dean of public safety, said of the struggle to get students into the field. “Many students enter our programs without knowing that emergency dispatch is a viable and rewarding career option.”

Industry leaders have spent years advocating for legislation they believe would change this. 

The federal 911 Saves Act, championed by both NENA and Waukesha leaders, would reclassify all 911 dispatchers as first responders for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which currently lists them as clerical or secretarial employees, alongside office clerks and taxi dispatchers.

This would allow dispatchers to access a slate of benefits, such as increased mental health resources, and it would reinforce the cruciality of the job, Heinze said.

“You hear little kids say, ‘I want to be a firefighter. I want to be a police officer,’” Goodchild said. “They don’t look at a 911 telecommunicator dispatcher as a career path. That hurts the industry, too.”

Eighteen states have passed their own laws reclassifying telecommunicators, but Wisconsin is not one of them.

“We’re hopeful this year that it is going to (pass), and it would help us, I think, very, very, very much,” Heinze said. 

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus.

Brown County’s 911 dispatcher shortage is relentless. What will it take to fix it? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.