California Highway Patrol dispatcher response times have significantly worsened, with call centers that handle three-fourths of the state's wireless 911 traffic failing to meet national standards.

Possibly frustrated by the slower response, cell phone customers "abandoned" more than twice as many calls in March as they did in January, according to CHP statistics. More than 26 percent of all wireless callers – 177,664 total – hung up before anybody answered, the numbers showed.

CHP spokeswoman Fran Clader said the agency has received no public safety complaints "that I'm aware of," and that dispatchers call back all 911 hang-ups to make sure the agency responds to true emergencies.

"It's important for the public to know that the 911 calls are being answered," Clader said.

Clader said that the public needs to remember "the life-and-death nature of 911 calls and that the system shouldn't be used for any other reason."

Agency officials have blamed the dispatcher-response problem on the CHP's elimination of a screening system that had been blocking out inadvertent 911 requests. The result, they say, has been more calls that demand a dispatcher's response – even as administration and legislative leaders are wrangling over issues such as employee furloughs, cell phone surcharges and whether the CHP or local law enforcement agencies are best equipped to handle emergency calls from an increasingly wireless public.

The slowdown in the CHP's ability to answer emergency calls first came to officials' attention in January. The response times deteriorated in February and March before improving slightly in April.

Standards established by the National Emergency Number Association maintain that 911 calls should be answered within 10 seconds 90 percent of the time. In April, nine of the state's 24 centers, mostly located in big cities and ones that handle 75 percent of all incoming wireless 911 phone traffic, failed to meet the standard.

The CHP dispatch center in Sacramento has fallen from an 81.5 percent performance in January to 73.2 percent in April. The center that handles the Bay Area met the standard just 52 percent of the time. The Los Angeles center that handles more than a quarter of all CHP 911 calls picked up within 10 seconds on barely seven of 10 calls in April, a major falloff from its 97 percent performance in January.

"People in emergency situations are not getting the help they need, or they're being forced to call back, or they're having to look for help somewhere else," said Assemblywoman Norma Torres, D-Pomona, herself a Los Angeles police dispatcher who is on leave while she holds office. "We need to talk to the public about the reality of this situation. This is another painful thing that is happening as a result of a lack of money coming into the state."

Lauren Burkitt, 24, and her husband, Duane Burkitt, 27, were on Highway 99 late at night about a month and a half ago when they saw an apparent drunken driver swerving from lane to lane. They called 911 and had to wait about 30 to 45 seconds, they said, before a dispatcher picked up. They say the car they spotted sideswiped a guardrail before a CHP officer drove up behind the driver and pulled him over.

"It was kind of stressful," Lauren Burkitt said. "It's frustrating. When somebody needs help, that 30 seconds could mean their life. If it was somebody in my family that needed help, I'd want them to be helped as quickly as possible. What if somebody got robbed or shot? It kind of worries me it could take that long to get help."

Alarmed by the slower response times, Torres earlier this year asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to re-evaluate his decision to include dispatchers in the state's employee furlough program. The administration refused the request. CHP officials say they've been able to maintain minimum staffing levels at the dispatch centers by converting some already-approved employee vacation requests into furlough time.

Torres also authored a piece of legislation, Assembly Bill 912, to increase the surcharge on intrastate cellular phone calls from a maximum of 0.75 percent to 1 percent. The $56 million generated by the increase would have been used to hire dispatchers for local police agencies already equipped to handle wireless 911 calls.

Call The Bee's Andy Furillo, (916) 321-1141.