On any given day, dispatchers in Broome County are taking in upwards of 1,600 calls. It's a task they've grown used to handling.

"At times, the phone's ringing, a different call is coming in every 30 seconds, every 45 seconds. There are times where we're running out of ambulances," said Broome County Communications Supervisor Michael Ballard.

While dispatchers have grown used to working long hours, that's about to change.

In 1999, the center shifted to 12-hour days due to a lack of staffing. Now that the county is able to add positions, Broome County Executive Jason Garnar is shifting them back to 8-hour days.

"You talk about being able to respond to an emergency, they're the first line of response. They're the first people [that] people speak to, so going from that 12-hour shift to that 8-hour shift is huge and it's going to be helpful to them," said Garnar.

The goal is to provide better and faster service to those who need it. That need has increased over the years due to a variety of factors.

"The residents of the county are getting older. We focus on EMS for now that the EMS side of things is just busy, busy busy, not only with the elderly, we also have the opioid crisis that's going on right now," said Ballard.

To further assist dispatchers and police, the county is installing a number of new radio towers for the first time since the 1970s.

"It will allow us to be more efficient. Right now, we have agencies spread across 13, 14 different primary channels," said Ballard.

The radio towers are expected to be up and ready to go by 2021.