Should Provo 911 send a call for help?

"As long as we fail to place enough importance on the critical function of the 911 center, we will continue to experience problems," she wrote three days before Aston died. "Many of these problems will be critical errors affecting lives of others and/or errors that could lead to serious legal implications for the city."

Two months after Aston's death, two dispatchers left, including one of Ferre's assistants. Provo was in a hiring freeze, so Ferre had to submit an analysis to prove it was necessary to replace them.

"The decision not to hire additional dispatchers has placed too high of a burden on the dispatchers and risked too much by placing the staffers of the 911 Center below standard recommendations and at a level that could compromise the critical services 911 provides," she wrote.

"We can't continue to spread them so thin that we can barely keep up during the slow times. The public expects and demands high quality 911 services. They expect that when they call for assistance they will receive a competent and trained dispatcher that will take charge of the situation and send them the help they need.

"Juggling emergencies," she added in conclusion, "is not a wise practice."

It's true the city has not added an additional dispatcher since Aston's death, but Geslison said that is because the Ogden investigation showed the error wasn't staffing-related. City officials also chose not to add more dispatchers because they wanted to wait to see if APCO would recommend additional staffing, Ireland said.

"The Aston issue was such a serious issue for us that it prompted the most professional outside review that could be found, and that's what we have with APCO," she said.

APCO's Web site lists studies about the staffing of dispatch centers and notes there isn't a single, widely accepted formula to determine whether a center is properly staffed.

"I have not felt the center was at risk at all," Bolda said.

Geslison said he has not felt a sense of crisis because he doesn't get any calls from residents saying they had a problem when they called 911.

"Dana has an intense opinion about that and we all understand why she does," Ireland said. "But to characterize it somehow as being the reflection that dispatch was understaffed is not something that can be accurately stated."

Listed errors

Ferre's memos provide a snapshot of errors she attributed to a lack of staffing or supervision, including calls going unanswered and inadequate call interrogation, which was a problem when an ill Scott Aston called for help.

Ferre wrote, "In an attempt to keep up with the call load, the dispatchers frequently prematurely end a call without asking all required information. This leads to jeopardized officer safety as well as incomplete records."