This editorial will appear in Friday’s print edition.

Pierce County’s 911 officials say performance audit, Pierce County’s audit staff say performance review.

We say, who cares? While professionals argue over terms of art, 911 callers are still waiting on the line longer than they should be.
The months-long dustup between the Law Enforcement Support Agency and Pierce County’s performance audit office is long on semantics and acrimony – and largely beside the point.

The two offices are arguing over a 2009 report commissioned by LESA. The 234-page report was prompted in part by the agency’s dismal service record: In 2005, it answered just 74 percent of 911 calls in 10 seconds. The industry standard is 90 percent.

LESA hired a consultant to tell it how it could do better. The consultant concluded that LESA was understaffed and that the county’s scattered 911 system was partly to blame.

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Here is what we’re working on for tomorrow:

The fight over whether a 2009 report on the county’s 911 call center is a true “performance audit” or not largely misses the point. What taxpayers and 911 callers really deserve to know about their emergency dispatch system is whether it works as well as it should. The uncontested answer is to that question is no. The report suggests one big reason is needless duplication of overhead costs. The public will assume that’s the case until it is proved otherwise.

Washington is one of only 11 states that has NO regulations regarding …

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