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HomeMy WebLinkAboutIR 7779 INFORMAL REPORT TO CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS No. 7779 00ae-% December 14, 1993 To the Mayor and Members of the City Council Subject: DIGITAL TRANSCRIPTION PROPOSAL Von SUMMARY The Fort Worth Police Department currently spends approximately$1,079,740 pe:year and dedicates the efforts of 16 officers and 10 detectives (26 officers in total)to accomplish its offense reporting utilizing the DECOR system. These figures reflect the 52,895 officer staffing hours spent by the Fort Worth Police Department waiting on the DECOR callback Est calling in offense and incident reports, and handwriting reports. It is estimated that over 38,000 of those hours are not needed to complete the reporting process, and those hours can be recovered by utilizing a more efficient method for the reporting of offenses. Additionally, citizens are allowed to report certain offenses to DECOR themselves, and they spend over 217,000 hours a year waiting on DECOR to respond back to them by telephone. The police department recommends the leasing of a digital transcription system that would allow officers, detectives, and citizens to dictate their offense reports to a computer with digital prompting by the system. Officers who are familiar with the system could dictate their reports without any prompting. This system would totally eliminate any waiting time for officers and detectives calling in Morts, and would virtually eliminate any waiting time by citizens calling in reports. Implementation of this proposal would save$782,116 in"soft" dollars per year in officer and detective salaries. This proposal would effectively add 11 officers and 8 detectives(19 officers total)to the force. Additionally, increased efficiency in DECOR may result in"hard" dollar salary savings by the elimination or reassignment of positions that could amount to as much as $178,740 a year for each year the digital system is in operation. And, not to be ignored is the 217,000 hours that the citizens of Fort Worth will not be required to spend waiting on the Police Department to call them back. These 217,000 hours are equivalent to having 24 citizens on the callback list 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This proposal will eliminate that perceived lack of service many of these citizens complain about. CURRENT SITUATION Fort Worth Police officers gather information concerning offenses, supplements, and incidents and call the DECOR Unit to dictate the information to an operator who enters the reports into the system while the officer speaks. Due to the tremendous amount of reports a year(over 180,000), the officers are routinely put on a callback list and called when the next available operator can take the report. Some officers choose not to wait on DECOR and they handwrite certain reports (about 23,000 a year are handwritten). The police department estimates that these handwritten reports may actually take longer to complete than other reports because the officers usually wait several minutes on the callback list before they decide to handwrite the report. ISSUED BY THE CITY MANAGER FORT WORTH,TEXAS INFORMAL REPORT TO CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS No. 7g C*_10TLfto December ea41, 1993 To the Mayor and Members of the City Council Page 2 of 6 x ). Subject: DIGITAL TRANSCRIPTION PROPOSAL rara Similarly, citizens meeting certain criteria are routed through the Communications Division to DECOR to give their reports. These citizens are put on callback lists also and are called when operators are available. The callback list is prioritized with officers given preference. Records for the latest 12-month period (October 1992 through September 1993) indicate that Fort Worth Police officers and detectives waited an average of 13.11 minutes on the callback fist before they were called back to give their reports. Citizens averaged 284 minutes on the fist before their report could be taken. For the police, this waiting time represents over 11,553 field officer staffing hours and over 11,648 detective staffing hours spent in nonproductive time. This is a total of 23,201 staffing hours officers spend waiting to make their reports, Those officers electing to handwrite their reports spend another 6,511 hours a year doing SQ Normally, detectives do not handwrite supplements, so these hours represent hours that officers in the field are not available for calls for service. For the officers who are called back by DECOR, they spend an average of 16.93 minutes dictating their reports to DECOR operators,, and detectives spend an average of 9.3 minutes dictating their supplements. This adds up to an additional 14,920 field officer staffing hours and an additional 8,263 detective staffing hours to call in reports. The total officer time spent actually dictating reports to a DECOR operator is 23,183 staffing hours a year. The total staffing hours the Fort Worth Police Department spends to complete its offense reports amounts to 52,895 hours, broken down as follows: • 23,201 hours spent on the callback fist waiting for an available DECOR operator * 23,183 hours actually calling in the report • An additional 6,511 hours handwriting reports when the callback list is too long. These hours, when factored in the appropriate mix by a middle-step officer's total compensation rate($18.99 hourly)and a Corporal/Detective's total compensation rate($22.77 hourly)add up to $1,079,740 per year. This is equivalent to funding a full-time section consisting of 16 officers and 10 detectives(26 officers total) at a cost of over one million dollars a year whose only responsibility is to spend their time waiting by the phone and calling in reports. ISSUED BY THE CITY MANAGER FORT WORTH,TEXAS P INFORMAL REPORT TO CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS No.,.. 2M "Ikyfft, December 14, 1993 FORP To the Mayor and Members of the City Council Page 3 of 6 XPO Subject: DIGITAL TRANSCRIPTION PROPOSAL Of course, it is recognized that the police department must make offense reports. However, by utilizing a better method of reportin& we can reduce that task from taking 26 officers full-time Digital 1),anscription System A digital transcription system is a computer that captures voice data and information and converts it to digital information, stores^it as computer data, and converts it back to voice data when it is ready to be transcribed. By storing the voice data as computer information, the data can be manipulated much like the text in our current word processor programs. Dictating reports and capturing them as computer information has many advantages over our current method of dictating offense reports, such as: instantaneous access to information; complete control over work assignments and workflow in DECOR; and, improved speed and effliciency in completing offense reports. For example, surveys.of other departments with digital transcription systems, and the police department's own tests, indicate that the average time officers spend dictating their reports dr-ops by 50% to 75% when they do not have to interact with an operator. Our own tests indicate that the average dictation time for a Fort Worth Police report drops from 16.93 minutes to 4.6 minutes (a 73% decrease). Conservatively, we have estimated that actual dictation times for all officers and detectives will be reduced by at least 50%.Assuming this estimate to be correct, half of the time and money spent dictating rewrts to live operators will be saved. This revresents a total savings of 11,592 officer and detective staffing hours at a cost savings of$235,740. All handwriting of reports would be eliminated;however, those offenses and/or incidents would then have to be phoned in. Therefore, we estimate that at least 50% of the time it currently takes to handwrite a report wiJ1 be saved by calling it in with no waiting period. This will save an additional 3,256 field officer staffing hours at a cost savings of$61,822. The total dollar savings per year of this iproposal concerning the officers is: 38,049 officer and detective staffing hours estimated to cost $782,116 will be saved so that they may be better utilized in a more Rroductive manner. This savings it; broken clown as follows: * 23,201 hours spent on the callback list waiting for an available DECOR operator 0 11,592 hours actually calling in the report * 3,256 hours calling in the report instead of handwriting Citizens, since they are limited to three ports, will occasionally receive a busy signal - but not often. Once in the system, they willselect; from a menu of limited available reports (limited to those few that citizens can report themselves), and they will then be prompted through the OPOL complete report. There are no dollar cost savings concerning citizens; however, the current L-ISSUED BY THE CITY MANAGER FORT WORTH, TEXAS INFORMAL REPORT TO CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS No. 7779 &ATE% Decenber 14, 1993 To the Mayor and Members of the City Council Page 4 of 6 Subject: DIGITAL TRANSCRIPTION PROPOSAL rays 217,000 hours they spend waiting on the Police Department to take their report will be virtually eliminated. COSTIBENEFIT ANALYSIS costs The cost of a digital transcription system that would suit the needs of the Fort Worth Police Department is approximately$215,000. This cost includes an 80-hour redundant recording system and a 5-year maintenance contract that allows a full refund of the entire system should it not fulfill our expectations due to mechanical failure. A system can also be leased for a 60-month term for approximately$4443.91 monthly. The monthly lease would include the maintenance agreement. With some companies, at the termination of the lease, the City of Fort Worth Police would own the equipment at no additional cost. Normally, companies that lease these systems can buy them after the lease period for about 20%-25% of the original cost. However, some companies give local and state governments the equipment at the end of the lease term with no buy-out funds required. The total cost for a 60 month lease is approximately $266,634.60. The Fort Worth Police Department will have to spend time training its officers and DECOR operators in the proper method of utilizing the system. This training is included in the purchase or lease price of the system, but will require the scheduling of personnel to receive this training while they are on-duty. Normally, the training can be accomplished at roll-call periods, with longer sessions being planned for the DECOR operators and supervisors. The new procedures are not drastically different from the way officers now call in their reports, and training and acclimation time should be minimal. For the future, a training session will have to be developed by DECOR personnel to present to the Police Academy classes when they are learning report writing. Benefits The Fort Worth Police Department will save and be better able to utilize 38,049 officer staffing hours per year that it currently Wends in nonproductive reporting practices. These nonproductive activities cost $782,116 per year. In effect, the Department will be adding 11 officers and 8 detectives to its force. This means that over 18,000 more police calls for service per year can be handled more promptly by the Fort Worth Police Department, and that almost 20,000 more cases per year will be able to be assigned for investigation to our detectives. And, these ISSUED BY THE CITY MANAGER FORT WORTH,TEXAS INFORMAL REPORT TO CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS No. 7M 00—PTE—fto Deceuiber 14, 1993 To the Mayor and Members of the City Council Page 5 of 6 Subject: DIGITAL TRANSCRIPTION PROPOSAL vm savings and productivity increases are repeated yearly. In addition, the citizens of Fort Worth will not be required to spend 217,000 hours waiting on DECOR to call them back to report their offenses and incidents. Additional cost savings may be realized in the DECOR Section itself. We estimate that the operators may have an average increase in productivity of approximately 30%. We expect this because the digitized report has much of the"dead" space in it compressed so that the transcriber hears words rather than the author's pauses. Also, the transcriber can control the speech playback by speeding it up or slowing it down plus-or-minus 50%with absolutely no distortion. Various users of this system have recorded productivity increases in their transcribers that make these estimations reliable. The following table is provided to estimate savings assuming different productivity increases based on the assumption that the workload in DECOR does not increase. The figures are based on the current full-staffing estimates in DECOR of 37 positions. Productivity #of Positions #of Positions Projected Salary Increase Required Reassigned Savings None 37 0 0 10% 34 3 59,580 15% 33 4 79,440 20% 31 6 119,160 25% 30 7 139,020 30% 28 9 178,740 The above assumptions concerning DECOR personnel cuts are only valid if the workload remains constant and the productivity increases indicated occur as expected. We cannot predict the exact amount of productivity increase, but there will be an increase in productivity. RECOMMENDATION It is recommended that the Fort Worth Police Department acquire a digital transcription system with a minimum of twenty ports(three dedicated to citizen calls, and seventeen dedicated to dictation and transcription for officers). If the City Council concurs, an M&C will be placed op, on the December 21'agenda for City Council approval. ISSUED BY THE CITY MANAGER FORT WORTH,TEXAS INFORMAL REPORT TO CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS No.. -n79 T 14, 1993 To the Mayor and Members of the City Council Page 6 of 6 Subject: DIGITAL TRANSCRIPTION PROPOSAL If you require any further assistance, please contact Assistant City Manager Libby Watson at 0 Deces�bex 871-6140, b b Teffel e I City Manager ity Manager ISSUED BY THE CITY MANAGER FORT WORTH,TEXAS