Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office – Communications Center
The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office Communications Center is located at the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office Headquarters at 7474 Utilities Rd. Punta Gorda, FL 33982.
This center is responsible for receiving 911 calls for all of Charlotte County, with the exception of calls made from within the Punta Gorda city limits. Law enforcement and Fire services are dispatched from this facility for incidents that occur within the county jurisdiction. EMS calls for service are dispatched for the entire county to include the city limits of Punta Gorda.
In 2023, the Charlotte County Public Safety Center received 114,228 administrative (non-emergency) calls and 104,762 911 calls with a total of 218,990 calls received overall.
Currently, the center is budgeted for 44 Full-Time Employees (FTEs). However, due to nation-wide shortages in eligible applicants, the center is currently staffed with 24 full-time operators, 8 supervisors/assistant supervisors, 1 Quality Assurance Specialist, 1 Training Coordinator, and 1 Public Safety Communications Manager. The operators are distributed among four 12 hour shifts, from 06:30-18:30 and 18:30-06:30. Each shift has at least one supervisory level telecommunicator on duty on duty at all times.
All operators are state certified prior to being released on their own from training. Telecommunicator training in this center surpasses all state requirements. All operators are certified by the state of Florida as telecommunicators and by Priority Dispatch as Emergency Medical Dispatchers. They receive a minimum of 45 hours of continuing dispatch education hours; 20 per year for state certification renewal and 25 hours per year for Emergency Medical Dispatch.