Communications Officer Ii

summary

under regular supervision, communications officer ii is responsible for communicating with and dispatching public safety personnel. Incumbents respond to the emergency and distress calls; dispatch public safety personnel/officers respond to inquiries by the public and other public safety agencies; interact with city, county, state, and federal public safety personnel; and maintain records of all dispatches. Assists in the on-the-job training of communication offer i employees, advise in daily activities, and act in the role of team lead in the absence of the supervisor.

the essential functions include, but are not limited to, the following duties. Additional essential functions may be identified by the city and listed as such in the incumbent’s performance appraisal elements. Various tasks may be assigned under each essential function. Those that are listed under the examples of work are not all inclusive; they are examples only and may be ameded or added to as needed by the city.

examples of work performance in this classification include, but are not limited to, the following tasks. These tasks may be amended, or other tasks may be assigned as necessary.

• answer multiple incoming emergency 911 calls.
• answer multiple incoming calls to the police department on non-emergency lines and reroute calls to other personnel as needed.
• recognize tty calls, emergency, and non-emergency, and effectively communicate with the caller.
• understand and respond quickly and accurately to written and/oral directions, instructions, inquiries, and requests.
• quickly evaluate and prioritize the urgency of calls.
• must utilize their training and maintain communications with caller while remaining calm, resolve situations, prioritize, and make decisions in multiple, highly stressful, and potentially deteriorating situations.
• question callers requesting dispatch to determine location of incident, nature of call, description of any suspects or suspect vehicles, appropriate personnel needed for the type of incident described, and phone number and name of caller.
• utilize special techniques to handle erratic and hostile callers when necessary.
• relay departmental sop pre-arrival instructions to the caller.
• connect emergency callers to other agencies or coordinate with other agencies when the incident does not involve our jurisdiction or other agencies/jurisdictions are involved in the incident.
• identifies the need to notify additional specialized resources such as poison control, american medical response, etc.
• operates the phone system safely and reports any malfunction immediately to supervisor.

• monitor radio traffic on patrol (police) frequencies, rescue (fire) frequencies, and county-wide police and fire frequencies.
• promptly respond to incoming incidents from radio traffic.
• dispatch appropriate personnel to emergency incidents inside and as required by mutual aid agreements, outside the city.
• maintain a clear, monotone, professional tone over all radio frequencies.
• monitor and respond to radio traffic during incident and act based upon information given by field personnel.
• advise officers and fire personnel of any safety issues of locations based upon previous call history.
• announces all points bulletins and other messages over the radio.
• conducts periodic welfare checks of field personnel during incidents to determine status.
• recognizes situational need to notify specific persons or agencies in emergency.
• operate radio equipment safely and report any malfunctions immediately to supervisor.

• log information received from callers into the computer aided dispatch (cad) system to streamline dispatch.
• verify cad accuracy of street addresses, response pattern advised by cad system, and beat location of described incidents for appropriate dispatch.
• if cad is unable to validate location, communications officer must have a knowledge of jurisdiction including beat boundaries.
• if cad is unable to give proper unit assignment, the communication officer must assign the appropriate number and type of units to respond to the incident.
• add, update, or remove location…