STRONGSVILLE – The city has entered into a new collective bargaining agreement with the Fraternal Order of Police, Parma Lodge #15 (radio dispatchers unit). The agreement is for three years with pay increases of 3, 2 and 2 percent going forward.

The agreement is retroactive to Jan. 1, 2016 through Dec. 31, 2018. Funds for the contract will be appropriated and paid from the city’s General Fund.

The agreement with the dispatchers took longer to hammer out than that of other bargaining units. This was the first labor agreement negotiated since the Southwest Emergency Dispatch Center was consolidated to include the cities of Strongsville, North Royalton, Berea and Olmsted Falls.

“It was really a different work group. The bargaining unit had different members and different representatives. There was a bit of a learning curve because it was almost like dealing with a new bargaining unit,” said Charles Goss, safety director with the city of Strongsville. “When all was said and done the agreement was framed almost identically to the other bargaining units.”

There are 24 dispatchers employed at the Southwest Emergency Dispatch Center. There were 12 full-time city of Strongsville dispatchers prior to consolidation with the other municipalities.

The Southwest Emergency Dispatch Center, and others for that matter, have had a difficult time in recruiting people to fill the role of dispatcher.

“It’s become a real problem in greater Cleveland,” Goss said. “We’ve given two civil service tests for entry-level dispatchers since we consolidated and we’re scheduled to give another one in January because we’re going through these candidates quickly and are not getting the candidate pool to take the test in numbers like we used to.”

Why are candidates applying in fewer numbers than years past? The difficulty of the job is the No. 1 reason, according to Goss.

“It’s very demanding and stressful. It’s a life or death job,” he said. “You have to be right 100 percent of the time. There’s pressure. It takes months to prepare these folks to take over a position. We’re trying to figure out a way to widen our recruiting efforts to get people interested in this career path.”

Once such effort is a partnership between the city of Strongsville and Cuyahoga Community College’s Public Safety Training Institute at the Western Campus in Parma.

The Institute provides basic training through the police, fire, private security, corrections and bailiff academies as well, as advanced training to support local emergency response services in a number of communities.

“Public safety dispatching has been a missing niche in what we do,” Goss said. “We recruit people who have been receptionists or clerks and try to train them to be dispatchers. It’s such a specialized job that it merits the same kind of attention we give these other public safety positions.”

The first session of a six-week program in dispatcher training commences at Tri-C the last week of November. Upon completion, students will have their emergency medical dispatch certification.

“The first month of training we give them will be done when they graduate from that academy. More importantly, this will be introduced as a career path to kids in high school or those attending Tri-C and not sure what they want to do,” Goss said. “The job’s been around a long time, but has evolved into a more demanding, more specialized job than it ever was before, especially with these regional dispatch centers. They have to be astute with software programs, keyboard skills and have to have a certain temperament and demeanor to function flawlessly under pressure.”