Mayor Bass, City Councilmembers Launch City’s First-Ever Unified Call Center for Unarmed Crisis Response, Sign Executive Directive to Hire More 911 Dispatchers

En Español

한국어

Investment in Civilian Crisis Response has Tripled Under Mayor Bass

Since 2023, More than 125,000 calls Have Been Diverted from 911 to Mental Health and Crisis Response Teams

LOS ANGELES - Mayor Karen Bass today was joined by Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, Councilmember John Lee, Councilmember Tim McOsker, Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, 911 dispatchers, and unarmed crisis responders to sign a new Executive Directive to strengthen and modernize Los Angeles' 911 emergency response system by:

• Establishing a unified call center to streamline the diversion and dispatch of civilian crisis response teams, replacing the two separate civilian call centers currently serving these programs.

• Accelerating the recruitment, hiring, and retention of 911 dispatchers by directing City departments to develop a coordinated staffing plan.

• Modernizing emergency communications technology to help 911 dispatchers answer and process calls more quickly and efficiently, further reducing wait times.

• Establishing clear performance metrics to track response times, measure progress, identify opportunities for improvement, and strengthen accountability.

Together, these actions will improve emergency response coordination, further reduce 911 wait times, and help ensure Angelenos receive the appropriate response to each call as quickly as possible. Today, the City's two civilian crisis response programs - CIRCLE and Unarmed Mobile Crisis Response - have been providing services across Los Angeles but operating with separate dispatch centers. This directive changes that so that the right responder can be dispatched to help Angelenos experiencing a mental health crisis quicker.

"Every Angeleno deserves to know that when they call 911, someone will answer quickly and the right help will be on the way - because when an emergency happens, every second counts," said Mayor Bass. "When I became Mayor, I made a commitment to transform how Los Angeles approaches public safety. That means having police officers to respond to serious crime, firefighters and paramedics to respond to medical emergencies, intervention workers to prevent violence, and trained civilian crisis response teams to help Angelenos experiencing mental health and other crises. Public safety is not one-size-fits-all. Different emergencies require different responses. I am proud to sign this Executive Directive today to strengthen the foundation of our 911 system and make civilian crisis response an integral part of how Los Angeles responds to emergencies."

When Mayor Bass took office, she established the City's first-ever Office of Community Safety dedicated to preventing crime through community-driven approaches including non-punitive strategies, violence interruption, re-entry services, and youth diversion programs. The Mayor has also tripled investment in civilian crisis response to expand the number of mental health and crisis response teams to respond to 911 calls.

This work has yielded results: violent crime is down, property crime is down, and homicides have reached a 60-year low. The directive also accelerates plans to recruit, hire, and retain more 911 dispatchers to further shorten response times. While 911 emergency response times have decreased over the past several years, this directive will help continue that progress.

"In South LA and across our city, public safety means ensuring that everyone receives the right response at the right time," said Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson. "With crime rates reaching historic lows and homicides at a 60-year low, we are seeing the tangible results of investing in comprehensive and community-centered safety strategies. Mayor Bass' leadership to modernize and shore up our 911 dispatch system is a vital step forward that will directly benefit our neighbors and families by improving response times and reducing unnecessary demands on law enforcement."

"When someone calls 911, whether they're in the San Fernando Valley or anywhere else in Los Angeles, they expect help to arrive quickly," said Councilmember John Lee, Chair of the City's Public Safety Committee. "I've consistently pushed to address critical dispatcher staffing shortages and improve emergency response times. By investing in staffing, technology, and better coordination, we can ensure our Valley residents get the help they need while allowing our police officers and firefighters to focus on the emergencies that need them most."

"When someone calls 911, they deserve the right help, from the right people, as quickly as possible." said Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, Chair of the City's Ad Hoc Committee on Unarmed Crisis Response. "We've already demonstrated that unarmed crisis response works, and now it's time to build the infrastructure to match. That means cutting through unnecessary bureaucracy, supporting our dispatchers, freeing up police officers to focus on emergencies that actually require them, and making smarter use of taxpayer dollars. We don't have to choose between fiscal responsibility, compassion, and public safety. We can deliver all three, and that's the Los Angeles we're building."

"We owe it to any Angeleno in crisis that every emergency call is answered as fast as possible with care dispatched swiftly," said Councilmember Bob Blumenfield. "We have moved many miles ahead since I helped launch our first unarmed crisis responder pilot and today's commitment to creating a unified call center with more staff is an enormous jump forward."

"By bringing our civilian crisis response programs under one unified dispatch system, we're eliminating unnecessary confusion and helping ensure Angelenos get the right response at the right time," said Councilmember Tim McOsker. "When someone calls 911, it's often during one of the most difficult moments of their life, and there's no substitute for a reassuring voice on the other end of the line. Our dispatchers carry tremendous responsibility, and with this executive directive, we're improving the processes and tools to recruit, hire, and retain these dedicated workers."

Read Executive Directive 23 below:

Modernizing the City's Emergency Response System

Introduction

Every second counts during an emergency. Day-in and day-out, our city's Police Service Representatives (PSR) answer and triage Angelenos' 911 calls. Once a call is answered, the City must be equipped to send the most appropriate response. Not all emergencies require a traditional law enforcement response. In fact, many are better served by our growing civilian crisis response programs, which dispatch social workers, clinicians, and mental health professionals. Currently, the City's civilian crisis response programs, Unarmed Model of Crisis Response (UMCR) and Crisis Incident Response through Community-led Engagement (CIRCLE), are served by separate dispatch centers, each possessing their own set of contractors and software systems. As PSRs triage calls, they must not only determine whether the call is eligible for civilian crisis response, but to which of the two programs they should divert the call. This consumes precious time.

The City has made important progress in aligning and clarifying call types and eligibility criteria for civilian crisis response, helping PSRs more readily identify calls that can be safely diverted from law enforcement. These improvements are an important step toward increasing diversion and reducing unnecessary demands on sworn resources. However, these programs' dispatch centers must be unified and more thoroughly integrated into the city's emergency response system, which will help PSRs quickly route calls to the appropriate responder. In turn, sworn personnel can focus on calls that require traditional law enforcement, while unarmed crisis responders focus on calls requiring trauma-informed care.

Improving 911 performance demands a comprehensive approach that requires establishing a unified infrastructure for civilian crisis response, modernizing emergency communications technology, and filling funded PSR vacancies. By addressing each of these, the City will reduce 911 answering times, improve the deployment of emergency services, and provide residents with faster and more appropriate responses. When Angelenos call 911, they deserve help immediately.

Therefore, I hereby direct the following:

I. ESTABLISH A UNIFIED CALL CENTER FOR CIVILIAN CRISIS RESPONSE

A. The City Administrative Officer (CAO), through the appropriate procurement function and in coordination with the Mayor's Office, Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD), Ad Hoc Committee on Unarmed Response, and other relevant departments and programs, shall develop and release two requests for proposals (RFPs) necessary to establish a unified call center supporting the city's civilian crisis response programs. The CAO shall serve as the procurement lead for these solicitations and shall conduct the competitive solicitation process in accordance with all applicable City policies and procedures. The programmatic and operational requirements informing the procurements, as well as the evaluation and selection process, shall be developed in coordination with the Mayor's Office, CAO, and relevant departments and programs, including through the CAO's working group on civilian crisis response dispatch established in CF 26-0061.

1. Technology, Software, and Data Management Request for Proposal

a. Direct the CAO to develop and release an RFP for the technology infrastructure necessary to support centralized intake, triage, dispatch, and data management for civilian crisis response programs. At a minimum, the procurement shall address:

i. Integration with LAPD's emergency communications and computer-aided dispatch systems, where appropriate and legally permissible;

ii. Electronic transfer of eligible calls from LAPD to civilian crisis response, reducing reliance on manual or verbal call transfers;

iii. Real-time dispatch and deployment of civilian response teams;

iv. Call and incident tracking and collection and management of program and performance data;

v. Interoperability across civilian crisis response programs and providers;

vi. Reporting and analytics necessary to evaluate call diversion, response times, service outcomes, and system performance;

vii. Appropriate cybersecurity, privacy, data governance, and criminal justice information requirements; and

viii. Capacity to support future expansion and integration of civilian crisis response services.

2. Call Center Staffing and Operations Request for Proposal

a. Direct the CAO to separately develop and release an RFP for staffing and operation of the unified civilian crisis response call center.

i. The procurement shall establish requirements for qualified personnel capable of receiving transferred calls, conducting appropriate secondary screening and triage, dispatching civilian response teams, coordinating field resources, and documenting call outcomes.

ii. The staffing model shall support reliable coverage, minimize service interruptions, and provide sufficient capacity to support current and future civilian crisis response operations.

3. Implementation and Funding

a. Direct the CAO to report to the Mayor in 30 days on the status of both procurements and provide an implementation plan and timeline identifying anticipated dates for development, release, award, contracting, testing, and deployment, with the goal of achieving full operation of the unified civilian crisis response call center no later than the beginning of Fiscal Year 2027-28.

b. Direct the CAO to report in 30 days with available funding and financing options to support development and initial implementation of the unified call center during Fiscal Year 2026-27, including technology development, systems integration, procurement, testing, and other one-time implementation to fully implement and operate the unified civilian crisis response call center, including staffing, technology, licensing, maintenance, data management, systems integration, contract administration, and other ongoing operating costs necessary for full implementation.

c. In the implementation of this directive, the Mayor's Office will continue working with the City Council and relevant departments to determine the appropriate long-term governance and organizational structure for the City's civilian crisis response system.

ii. DEPLOY TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE 911 CALL ANSWERING

A. Direct the LAPD, in coordination with ITA and the Mayor's Office, to evaluate current and recommend future technology improvements to the city's emergency communications infrastructure, including any available improvements that will enable effective automated call management and multilingual capabilities. These improvements shall be intended to enhance the capacity and effectiveness of Senior PSR's and PSR's, not replace these positions or diminish their essential roles in emergency call handling and dispatch.

B. Direct the LAPD, in conjunction with ITA, to report in 60 days on:

1. The status and results of any artificial intelligence or automated technology pilots intended to assist PSRs with 911 call intake, triage, transcription, quality assurance, call processing, or other emergency communications functions;

2. Available data regarding whether these technologies, where implemented, have reduced call-processing time, improved PSR productivity, increased call-answering capacity, or otherwise affected 911 wait times;

3. Additional technologies that could improve the speed and efficiency of 911 call answering, processing, and dispatch while supporting PSR decision-making and maintaining appropriate human oversight;

4. Technology, infrastructure, staffing, labor, privacy, cybersecurity, or policy barriers to broader implementation; and

5. Recommendations and an implementation timeline for technology enhancements that can strengthen PSR capacity, improve emergency communications performance and reduce 911 call-answering wait times.

6. Opportunities to engage and collaborate with labor representatives in evaluating, developing, and implementing technology improvements to ensure that new technologies support PSRs in performing their duties more efficiently, preserve their essential role in emergency communications, and address potential workforce impacts.

A. Direct the Personnel Department, in coordination with LAPD, to submit a joint report and implementation plan to the Personnel and Hiring Committee and Budget and Finance Committee in 60 days. This report and analysis should support Council's pending report from the City Legislative Analyst (CF 26-0600-S36). The plan shall include:

1. The number of authorized, funded, filled, and vacant senior PSR and PSR and positions (and related and pertinent classifications, vacancy and attrition rates, and the status of existing PSR candidate lists and hiring pipelines;

2. An assessment of barriers contributing to vacancies and timeline for filling funded vacancies;

3. Opportunities to accelerate recruitment, testing, background review, hiring, onboarding, and strategies to improve recruitment and retention;

4. The feasibility of establishing year round recruitment and recurring hiring cycles throughout the year, similar to the recruitment and hiring model used for sworn LAPD personnel, to maintain a consistent pipeline of qualified PSR candidates and more quickly fill vacancies.

5. Immediate actions that can be taken to accelerate hiring and longer-term strategies necessary to maintain sufficient staffing to meet the city's 911 call-answering performance goals.

6. Any training or preparation that can improve senior PSR and PSR's response times and ability to discern when it is appropriate to divert calls to our civilian crisis response programs.

B. Concurrent with the release of the report indicated above, direct the CAO to review the report's findings and identify any funds that are appropriate and necessary to implement the reforms for consideration by the Mayor and Council, either as a standalone transmittal or in the context of a Financial Status Report.

IV. ESTABLISH DISPATCH PERFORMANCE MEASURES

A. Request the Board of Police Commissioners to direct the LAPD, in coordination with the CAO, Personnel Department, and ITA, to establish baseline data for the city's current 911 call-answering performance and develop measurable targets for improvement that shall be used to guide future investments in staffing, technology, and civilian crisis response infrastructure.

B. Request the Board of Police Commissioners to direct the LAPD to report in 60 days on baseline performance and recommend measurable targets for reducing 911 call-answering wait times. Performance measures shall include, at minimum:

1. Average and median 911 call-answering time;

2. Percentage of 911 calls answered within applicable performance standards;

3. Number and percentage of calls exceeding established wait-time thresholds;

4. 911 call abandonment rates;

5. Call volume and calls processed per PSR;

6. Number and percentage of eligible calls transferred or diverted to civilian crisis response;

7. Time required to transfer eligible calls to civilian crisis response; and

8. Other measures necessary to determine whether staffing, technology, and civilian crisis response integration are improving emergency communications performance.