ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A new Orange County audit found that 911 callers are waiting too long for a dispatcher to answer their call and send help.
Comptroller Phil Diamond says his team of auditors also found that the Orange County Sheriff’s Office has been miscalculating its call pick-up time.
Before the audit began, Diamond says county staff knew the Sheriff’s Office wasn’t meeting state requirements with call pick-up times.
They later found that the call pick-up times were far worse than what they originally thought.
For two years, Orange County Sheriff’s Office self-reported they were answering about 80 percent of calls within 10 seconds.
The state standard is that dispatch should answer at least 90 percent of calls within 10 seconds.
A new county audit found those numbers were far worse because the Sheriff’s Office didn’t account for the time callers spent on hold.
“Seconds matter,” Diamond said. “If you’re calling 911 because you’ve got a family member that’s having a heart attack, or you’ve got a bad guy trying to kick down your front door, you want help right away. You don’t want to wait.”
The audit shows that the majority of those put on hold in 2024 waited less than a minute. In extreme cases, they waited more than two minutes.
This past year, Orange County answered roughly 75% of its calls within 10 seconds. It’s an improvement from the 61% in 2023 and the 66% in 2022.
“It gives us an opportunity to improve the service that we provide for this community,” Canty said.
The county is recommending scheduling more staff to cover peak call hours, pulling other sheriff’s office employees to answer calls, and hiring part-time call takers.
Undersheriff Mark Canty says in the past few years, they had about 75 to 80 vacancies. Now, they’re better staffed with only 10 vacancies.
The Sheriff’s Office is still working on improving answering time. Undersheriff Canty says if you are on hold with 911, do not hang up. Stay on the line.
If you hang up and call back, you’ll lose your original spot in the queue and have to wait longer. Also, by law, the dispatcher must call back if you hang up.
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