Police want to make it easier to become a radio dispatcher.

The Honolulu Police Department’s Communications Division, which includes civilian police dispatchers who answer emergency and nonemergency 911 calls, says it streamlined a previously cumbersome application process to allow more people to apply and be hired.

The previous process was so inconvenient with so much waiting that one applicant pool of several hundred dwindled down to just four new hires last year, said supervising police dispatcher Melodey Lewellen.

She hopes the revised application process will keep more applicants interested and allow HPD to add another training class, bringing the number of classes to about three a year.

“We’re losing viable candidates because of the long process to go through,” she said. “We’re trying to reduce it.”

The division has about 20 vacancies out of 160 positions and is anticipating a significant spike in openings with about a dozen employees soon becoming eligible for retirement. Lewellen said additional vacancies would add to the challenges already facing employees but that the division always manages to pull together and provide the coverage needed to protect officers and keep the public safe.

The beginning salary is $2,810 per month.

Applicants must take a skills test and undergo a criminal background check, but Lewellen hopes the process can be shortened by a month, to about five months. HPD worked with the city’s Department of Human Resources to simplify the process by dropping the civil service exam from the initial requirements and beginning to accept applications continuously. The change was implemented May 15.

Applicants can now fill out an application online anytime, and when enough applications are received, the division will hold a performance exam, or skills test, at HPD headquarters. Lewellen said she hopes the division can hold the exam every month.

Previously, dispatcher hopefuls had to wait until the city opened an application window for a few days, usually about twice a year, then be scheduled for a civil service exam, then wait for a letter telling them when to take HPD’s performance exam.

The performance exam tests a candidate’s ability to do the job and gives applicants a taste of the work toward the beginning of the application process, said police radio dispatcher Ah Lan Leong.

She said multitasking is a big part of the job, including answering calls, extracting relevant information from callers, entering data, accessing multiple computer programs for each call, communicating with other dispatchers and providing officers with information.

“Right in the beginning, they can get exposed to our world,” she said of the performance test.

She said it takes a special person to do the job but that the work is rewarding because dispatchers provide “the comfort that we are sending help.”

“You feel like you’re making a difference in someone’s life when they are in need of help,” she said. “Even if it’s just one person, it’s worth it for me.”

Visit joinhonolulupd.org to apply, or visit facebook.com/JoinHPD for information about dispatcher informational sessions.