Stress starting to take a toll on Jefferson County 911 staff, director says

A mass exodus of 911 dispatchers in the near future is a possibility if they aren’t paid soon, according to Karen Blevins, director of the Jefferson County Office of Emergency Management.

Blevins said Wednesday that seven of the 32 dispatchers have stopped coming to work because they haven’t gotten paid due to the Jefferson County Quorum Court’s inability to pass a budget for 2025. The employees haven’t quit, Blevins said, but they may not have the money to put gas in their vehicle in order to get to work.

“We most likely will have many or all of them stop coming to work if they aren’t paid in the next week,” she said.

At one time, it was suggested that “essential” workers, such as the dispatchers, would continue being paid. That turned out to be incorrect.

“We thought we were essential workers, but as it turned out, that didn’t happen,” she said. “There has to be an appropriation by the Quorum Court and there hasn’t been one.”

Justices of the peace are split on their support of or opposition to County Judge Gerald Robinson. Consequently, his efforts to pass a budget for the new year have been stifled on three separate occasions. On Monday night, during a special meeting that was called to pass a budget, there were 5 votes for Robinson’s proposal, 5 against it and 3 abstentions.

Blevins said the last check anyone got was around Dec. 30, creating a situation that has caused morale to plummet.

“They’ve had no pay, and like everyone else, they have bills to pay, utilities, food, you know, all the basic things,” Blevins said. “On top of an already stressful job, now they have personal issues they’re stressing over.”

For now, most of the dispatchers are continuing to come to work because they don’t want to abandon their posts and leave the public in a vulnerable spot, Blevins said. To alleviate some of the additional burden on the ones who are still working, she said officials have tried to work with a slightly reduced staff.

“We know when we’re busiest and when we’re not and have tried to take advantage of that,” she said, “but then the other night, there was a homicide and we got very busy so it’s difficult to pick and choose what staffing level is going to work.”

Blevins said she has access to a county vehicle and has offered to use it to help dispatchers get to and from work. To pay for the gas, there is a county credit card.

“We can use that, but the bill isn’t being paid, so it may get shut off, too,” she said.

No other county bills are being paid, Blevins said, so invoices for phone service, electricity and other utilities are yet to be addressed. As well, she said, paycheck deductions for insurance and other take-outs are not being processed.

At Monday night’s Quorum Court meeting, Blevins commented on raises that had been given to chief deputies in other departments – raises that Robinson says were handed out last year without proper authorization. She said she didn’t give out such raises because she did not get permission in 2024 to do so.

“I didn’t know it was allowed, and it wasn’t,” she said. “We usually get a memo from the county judge or the Quorum Court saying that for the new year, you can include a raise for employees. But we didn’t get that. But some departments gave the raises to chief deputies, so I guess it was, ‘Let’s go for what we can get out of this.'”

Blevins said the raises handed out by other departments are hard to ascertain. In the past, she said, the county clerk handed out a form that showed a list of employees and line-item amounts for the current year, the new year and the amount of the changes being proposed by the department head.

“Apparently, the county clerk just threw that form out the window, because we didn’t get that for this year’s budget process,” Blevins said. “Now, the budgets just show a salary amount for 2025 and not what the salary changes are from last year’s budget.”

Asked what she will do if the budget impasse continues and more and more dispatchers stop coming to work, Blevins said she had contacted the state Department of Emergency Management to see what kind of assistance they can provide. One suggestion, she said, was that she could ask for dispatchers from other counties to volunteer, which would be of marginal help considering that those people would not likely know the particulars of Jefferson County.

As a last resort, she said, with no dispatchers to answer the phone, the public could be asked to call the individual agencies.

“We’d have to say, don’t call us, call the police department or the sheriff’s office or EASI (the ambulance service) or the fire department directly,” Blevins said. “That’s the way it used to be done.”