BILL ANALYSIS
AB 423
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 27, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON UTILITIES AND COMMERCE
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 423 (Torres) - As Amended: April 13, 2009
SUBJECT : Emergency telephone systems.
SUMMARY : Expands the size and responsibilities of the State
911 Advisory Board (advisory board).
EXISTING LAW
1)Creates the Warren-911-Emergency Assistance Act establishing
the number "911" as the primary emergency telephone number for
use in California.
2)Requires local agency providers to develop systems for
receiving 911 calls and relaying them to the appropriate
responders.
3)Requires the Communications Division of the Department of
General Services (DGS) to review and update technical and
operational standards for 911 systems, after consultation with
specified entities and individuals.
4)Creates the advisory board to advise the Communications
Division on several subjects, including technical and
operational standards for the California 911 system and
training standards for county coordinators and public safety
dispatch center managers.
5)Requires that multi-lingual operators be on duty or available
via conference call at all times at those "911" public safety
dispatch centers serving an area where 5 percent or more of
the population speak a specific primary language other than
English.
6)Establishes the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and
Training (POST) within the Department of Justice.
7)Requires POST to adopt, and authorizes POST to amend from time
to time, rules establishing minimum standards relating to the
recruitment and training of local public safety dispatchers.
AB 423
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THIS BILL:
1)Adds a representative from POST to the advisory board.
2)Requires the advisory board to advise DGS concerning issues
relating to the receipt of calls in a language other than
English, the need for additional recruitment of multilingual
public safety dispatchers, and evaluation of the need to
create standardized basic and advanced training programs.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown.
COMMENTS : According to the author's office AB 423 addresses
potential improvements in the procedures for recruiting,
training, and ongoing skill development for 911 dispatchers. 911
dispatchers perform a crucial function in the public safety
system. Their job is high-stress, and requires precise and
effective performance in order to relay calls accurately from
the public and making the call to the proper emergency
responder. Recruitment hurdles and high rates of turnover make
filling all dispatcher positions challenging.
1) Background: In 1976 the Warren-911-Emergency Assistance Act
(911 Act) was passed into law in order to shorten the time
required for a citizen to request and receive emergency aid. The
911 Act named DGS as the state oversight entity in order to
ensure cooperation between the public agencies, public safety
agencies, and telephone service areas that were involved in its
implementation. Since DGS had no expertise in this subject area,
the 911 Act also created the advisory board in order to advise
DGS on a number of specific issues, including technical and
operational standards for the 911 system and training standards
for county coordinators and dispatch center managers.
POST was established by the Legislature in 1959 to set minimum
selection and training standards for California law enforcement.
Participation in POST is voluntary. Over 600 agencies statewide
have chosen to participate. Participating agencies agree to
abide by the standards established by POST. POST offers over two
dozen dispatcher training courses, including basic and advanced
public safety dispatcher courses.
2) The need for multi-lingual intake capabilities: Clear
communication between the dispatcher and a person requesting
emergency services is extremely important. Under the basic 911
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system when an individual calls 911 the dispatcher does not
automatically receive the caller's phone number and location,
thus the dispatcher needs to be able to understand this
information when it is relayed to them. Furthermore, he
dispatcher needs to understand the nature of the emergency in
order to ensure that they can dispatch the appropriate
responders.
According to data from the 2000 census, California leads the
nation in the percentage of people who speak a language other
than English at home, which is around 40 percent. More
importantly, it found that over 11.5 million households in
California were linguistically isolated, defined as having no
member fourteen years old or older who speaks English well.
These findings illustrate the need for multi-lingual intake
capabilities at dispatch centers.
Since there are hundreds of different languages spoken in
California it may be impossible to have dispatchers available at
all times that will be able to serve all non-English calls. In
order to help deal with this issue, in 2005 DGS designated a
foreign language emergency translation service provider for the
entire state that supports 150 different languages. Under a
multi-year agreement the provider was to support over 500 public
safety dispatch centers. A number of other public emergency
response entities have implemented similar services over the
past decade, most notably the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA).
This bill attempts to address the need for multi-lingual
capabilities at dispatch centers by explicitly asking the
advisory board to evaluate the need for additional recruitment
of multilingual public safety dispatchers. The need for actual
dispatchers that are multi-lingual may be declining due to the
adoption of translation services.
3) Standardized Training: Dispatch centers vary in terms of the
types of training that they provide. Not all dispatch centers
use the POST dispatcher course. When the legislature established
POST it was intentionally created to be voluntary. This may have
been because each local agency has individual training needs
unique to their jurisdiction. Some large dispatch centers, like
the Los Angeles Police Department, have their own training for
dispatchers. This training has been certified by POST. According
to the author's office, other dispatch centers provide no
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training at all. This bill requires the advisory board to advise
DGS regarding the "need for standardized training." However
there is already widely-utilized standardized training available
through POST. It is unclear what the author intends to
accomplish with this provision, therefore the committee may wish
to consider clarifying whether the advisory board will evaluate
the POST training itself, the possibility of mandating the POST
training or the possibility of creating new standardized
training.
4) Technical amendments: Language in the bill is somewhat
unclear regarding whether or not the standardized training it is
asking the advisory board to consider is related to
multi-lingual intake issues. In order to clarify legislative
intent, the committee may wish to consider separating the
various issues by subsection consistent with other sections of
code that assign issues to be evaluated by advisory boards.
There is also a typo on page 5, line 30. The bill says "of"
rather than "or." The committee may wish to consider correcting
the typo.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
California Ambulance Association (CAA)
California Communities United Institute (CalComUI)
California State Sheriffs' Association (CSSA)
California Statewide Law Enforcement Association (CSLEA)
The Latina Center
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Nina Kapoor / U. & C. / (916) 319-2083