According to Dispatch, the Owensboro Police Department and Daviess County Sheriff’s Office expect to finish the year with significantly more calls than in 2022. However, officials are seeing more accessible responses due to new technology.
911 Director Paul Nave said that with OPD already reporting 42,062 calls and DCSO with 19,308, the two agencies would, if they hadn’t already, surpass their marks from last year — 50,022 and 19,081, respectively.
“Based on the projected numbers, OPD is going to be over by around 2,000 to 4,000 compared to last year, and the county is going to be over by roughly 6,000 to 7,000 depending on workload from now to the end of the year,” Nave said.
While those agencies will continue to see a rise in total calls, Nave said that Owensboro Fire Department saw a significant decrease in call volume compared to 2022. In 2022, the agency reported 8,561 calls; through October, they reported 4,714 calls.
The decrease is due to OFD changing their response plans in November 2022, after Fire Chief James Howard noted the staff was experiencing morale drops.
With that many calls being fielded to Owensboro-Daviess County Central Dispatch, Nave said they still report that 96.6% of callers spoke to a dispatch worker within 10 seconds, which he feels is a “good average.”
AMR, the county’s ambulance provider, reported that implementing the CAD-2-CAD Live system lowered the 4-month average response time from 1.08 minutes to 35 seconds.
The CAD 2 CAD Live system eliminates redundancy in areas like addresses and instead focuses on getting pertinent information to AMR so they can respond as soon as possible.
Additionally, Nave said the GIS system they have in place has almost 100% accuracy and can pinpoint apartments and subaddresses, making it easier for agencies to respond with precision.
“We can geo-validate that; it’ll pinpoint [the address] on the map and give [the agency] directions already, so all that’s pinpointed, and they know exactly where they are,” Nave said. “…We have every motel and hotel, and we’re working with the schools, so if we get an address to a school, it’ll pinpoint the exact room number so they know where to enter best from.”
