St. Joseph County call center looking to fix caller ID problems

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. — another mix-up at the St. Joseph County 911 Call Center, this time sending emergency crews to the wrong school.

Leadership say the center is getting inaccuracies in locating where some emergencies calls are coming from.

The center has been open for just over a year, but it’s still feeling some growing pains.

“It’s a work in progress,” said Raymond Schultz, the executive director of the St. Joseph County Call Center. “We’ve been working with our CAD vendor to smooth out some issues we’ve been dealing with since June.”

The center hit a few bumps on the road to get it up and running.

In August, the staff there rallied outside the county city building for more dispatchers after being overworked.

And the following month, then-director Brent Croymans stepped down.

Schultz, his successor, says they’re actively working on the former issue.

“The cross training almost immediately helps and the new folks that are trained helps replace vacancies we have so we have people work less overtime and they can be home with their families more,” he said.

But Monday, another problem arose.

“The data on the phone systems identifying the schools to the 911 center are not correct,” said Tim Scott, South Bend Common Council President.

According to a representative at South Bend Community Schools, police were called to an incident at Jackson Middle School on Monday.

Those officers were misrouted to Edison Intermediate Center instead.

“What we’re hearing is, it’s a delay with AT&T,” said Scott. “PSAP (public-safety answering point), the school system, they all give the addresses the phone numbers and that to AT&T. They got to make sure that the system’s right”

Leaders from both the school district and call center say they’re working to prevent this from happening again.

“We’re pushing on our end for the phone company to get that taken care of because we do see this as a risk problem for the community,” said Schultz.