Mayor Sheng Thao held a news conference to discuss the two-year funding plan.
Thao said in a news release: "Response times have been a long-standing issue for our city, and the current situation is unacceptable,"
In June, an Alameda County Civil Grand Jury report warned that Oakland's 911 system was underperforming.
The report found that aging technology and staffing shortages, among other things, have led to a situation where calls to the city's Emergency Communications Center are still not answered in a timely manner, despite a Grand Jury report identifying similar issues three years ago.
That report found existing staff couldn't competently handle the 700,000-plus emergency calls the ECC received in 2019 and that dispatchers were unable to meet state standards that say 90 percent of calls should be answered by a live person within 15 seconds and 95 percent should be answered within 20 seconds.
The report also said that the city had no call-answering policy or standard to ensure compliance, that Oakland's hiring process was too slow and that hiring operators and dispatchers was not seen as a priority.
The two-and-a-half million dollars for system improvements is coming from the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum Joint Power Authority.
City officials said the Oakland Police Department is working to recruit 16 new dispatchers and to update its computer-aided dispatch system that helps connect emergency responders to the scene of a call.
