Missouri APCO Sends Letters to Missouri Congressional Delegates Urging Support of Reclassification

Dear (congressional delegate),

I am writing to you on behalf of the Missouri Chapter of the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (MOAPCO), an association that represents over 500 public safety communications professionals in Missouri. Currently, there is a bill on the floor of both the House and Senate seeking to reclassify public safety telecommunicators as first responders. This bill, entitled the 911 SAVES Act H.R. 2351/S.1175, instructs the Office of Management and Budget to categorize the position of Public Safety Telecommunicator as a protective service under the Standard Occupational Classification System, rather than under its current classification of Office and Administrative Support.

Each day, the men and women of Missouri’s Emergency Communications Profession report for duty and begin answering their citizens and visitors’ most desperate pleas for help. From home invasions to car crashes, from structure fires to missing or abducted children, a very small and resilient portion of Missouri’s population is there to answer the call and support field responders – police officers, deputies, troopers, firefighters, paramedics and emergency medical technicians – in their efforts on the ground. Beyond often being the first contact with emergency services and a lifeline to the citizens in need, these emergency communications professionals are also answering the call for emergency assistance from the officer who is in a fight for their life. 

I know that your time is valuable, however,  I would like to provide you with just two out of countless examples of how Public Safety Communications professionals are indeed first responders. On October 6, 2020, a Public Safety Telecommunicator with the Jasper County Emergency Services Board answered the 9-1-1 call from a father reporting his two-year-old child abducted by the mother who was threatening to kill both herself and their child. The telecommunicator kept the father on the phone throughout the incident, keeping him calm and updated while her teammates, fellow telecommunicators coordinated a multi-agency, multi-state search that resulted in the safe return of the child. Not only did this team of Telecommunicators coordinate the response and search, they continued to answer their citizens’ calls for assistance, including a medical emergency that required pre-arrival instructions to be given. Throughout this incident, the telecommunicator was that caller’s first responder, the person who was the first to respond to his crisis and assist him through it. 

In the early morning hours of May 17, 2021, a Public Safety Telecommunicator in Cass County, Missouri answered the call. On the other end of the line was a female who had hydroplaned off the roadway and into a flooding creek. The public safety telecommunicators used the tools at their disposal along with their training to obtain her location, start field responders and keep her reassured. For an extended time until field responders arrived on scene and even past that, the telecommunicator was this caller’s first responder, her lifeline. This telecommunicator was able to guide the field responders from the general location of the call to the swept away vehicle and the victim clinging to their phone and a tree branch. Beyond that, this telecommunicator was able to reassure the caller and keep her calm and focused and more importantly, not give up hope.   

This is just a small sample of the hard work and professionalism that Public Safety Telecommunicators have and the impact they have in emergency situations each and every day. As of this writing, Congressional Delegates from Missouri only represent two of the 84 cosponsors of H.R. 2351 and none of S.1175’s cosponsors. I ask that you consider supporting this no cost measure to finally recognize Public Safety Telecommunicators as the first responders they are. 

In conclusion, I’d like to leave you with a few words from Kris Inman, a 9-1-1 Director in Missouri, regarding what reclassification as first responders would mean to those in the Public Safety Communications profession.  “It means that our folks will, officially, become the first responders we already know them to be. It means more respect for a profession that sorely deserves it. And it means that this profession will at last be recognized as the vital cog in the public safety machine that it has always been and always will be.”

Thank you for your time and your consideration in supporting the 911 SAVES Act.  

Zachary Dykes
President, Missouri Chapter of the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials