DC Auditor Issuing RFP for 911 Audit After Dispatching Issues
Washington, D.C.’s 911 office will be audited (see 2009240064) after concerns raised by the media and local and federal officials about possible dispatching mistakes, the Office of D.C. Auditor said Thursday. A final report could be finished May 15, said a request for proposals. District of Columbia Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 4B01’s Evan Yeats requested the audit and Thursday applauded Auditor Kathleen Patterson, who earlier said the office was considering such a move (see 2008070042). Other stakeholders also backed the review.
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“This audit will evaluate the effectiveness" of the Office of Unified Communications' "911 Operations Division against national standards, review a sample of 911 call recording and data, evaluate OUC culture and training, review OUC’s technological capabilities, and review OUC’s internal investigations of past incidents,” the RFP said. The auditor seeks questions about the RFP by Oct. 9 and proposals by Oct. 16. The office aims to notify the winning consultant to proceed by Nov. 9, and by Nov. 13, the consultant working on this review would meet with the auditing agency to "identify research issues, clarify objectives, and agree on timeline," said a tentative schedule. The consultant would provide a preliminary report of findings and recommendations by April 1.
“Recent events call into question the effectiveness of OUC’s 911 Operations Division,” the auditor’s RFP said. The National Transportation Safety Board recommended an independent outside audit of OUC, as part of NTSB’s investigation into the January 2015 L’Enfant Plaza Metro subway fire, which included a late 911 dispatch, but the audit never happened, the office said. ANC 4B voted May 27 for a resolution requesting an audit of OUC after a fatal house fire at 708 Kennedy St. NW in 2019, it said. “Recent media coverage also calls into doubt OUC’s ability to dispatch” the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services (FEMS) and the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) “units to the correct location in a timely manner.”
“It's critical that OUC works well when they are needed and an audit will help us make sure that it does,” said Yeats. "We can make our city safer, stronger and more responsive and OUC is a critical link in that change. If we want people to get the care they need in emergencies, if we want to reduce over-policing, if we want to have District citizens to have more trust in our government -- a well-functioning OUC is a linchpin.”
OUC Director Karima Holmes earlier defended 911 dispatching and transparency, saying she would welcome an audit (see 2009030048). Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) said last month she was “absolutely” confident in OUC (see 2008180023).
OUC, the mayor’s office, D.C. Council Public Safety Committee Chairman Charles Allen (D), FEMS and MPD didn’t comment.
911 Concerns
Although the mayor and council members aren't known to have spoken out on the dispatching accuracy concerns, other local officials and political candidates continue doing so.
Eric Rogers, an at-large independent candidate for the city council who ran the Department of For-Hire Vehicles under the current mayor, thought wrapping up the OUC review by May "is good timing." That's when the auditor's office envisions a report. Such problems have existed even before OUC and were a reason behind the office's creation, Rogers noted in an interview. Firefighters, emergency medical technicians and police officers have raised concerns to him, Rogers said. "They all sound the same alarm bells" about "the city’s ability to accurately get to a location" in a short time, he added, saying he didn't intend that to be a pun. For MPD, OUC sometimes sends officers from the wrong police district to a call, Rogers said he has heard.
Because almost all of MPD's walkie-talkie radio transmissions are private, in keeping with the now-common practice in most municipalities, we haven't been able to monitor such traffic, unlike with fire-medical rescuers. One of our Freedom of Information Act requests, made last week to OUC, is outstanding. We are appealing the agency's denial of another FOIA request. A third request was mostly fulfilled by the agency and will be the subject of a future news article.
Those who know Patterson hold the D.C. auditor in high esteem, ginning up some hopes that her office's inquiry can help pave the way to improve 911 in the nation's capital. City Council candidate Rogers had worked with Patterson on an audit of an agency he was helping to run, and he found her "helpful and focused mainly on correcting the issues" and not on politics. "Any of the recommendations" she makes are "something that the agency can act on and improve service," he said. "Lives are on the line, and this is where citizens are most vulnerable and where government should shine the most," Rogers said. "It's complicated, but not so much that it can’t be solved."
911 expert Dave Statter, whose blog posts, tweets and testimony to the D.C. Council have raised concerns about OUC mishandling its duties, noted he met with the auditor's office last month. "They asked great questions and showed a lot of knowledge of OUC’s history," he emailed now.
Editor's note: This is part of an ongoing series of articles about D.C. 911 dispatching problems. To read previous top news stories on this, see here, here and here.