Minutes can mean lives to firefighters battling flames or answering medical emergencies. So when Minneapolis spent $4.2 million upgrading its computer dispatch technology this year, Fire Chief James Clack was hoping for the faster response times the maker promised.

Instead, things are worse. Since the upgrade, firefighters are getting to fewer emergency calls within the five minutes they use as a standard.

Minneapolis dispatchers say the new system has advantages, but it also makes some illogical choices about which trucks to send, or routinely freezes or slows down, and requires more steps. The city's 911 center also has been slapped with a state worker injury citation since the system was turned on last winter.

The experience offers a cautionary tale for cities and counties flush with federal homeland security grants and looking at leading-edge technology.

"It's unacceptable," said Council Member Paul Ostrow, who learned about the problem at a recent fire budget hearing.

Fire response loses ground

The National Fire Protection Association sets a standard of arriving at the scene within five minutes for 90 percent of calls. The Minneapolis department has never hit that standard, but it has come close -- as high as 88 percent in 2004.

Clack said he had thought his department could finally hit 90 percent with the new dispatch system adopted by the Minneapolis Emergency Communications Center (MECC).

Instead, the percentage of calls for which the department arrives in five minutes has fallen to 84 percent. For a department that makes about 30 fire and 70 emergency runs daily, that means an extra six calls aren't being answered within the five-minute standard.

"I share your disappointment," Clack told the City Council budget hearing.

Improving response times was one of the city's criteria for evaluating bids and the winning proposal promised to do that.

"These are very, very complicated systems, and they require a lot of fine-tuning," said Chris Maloney, chief executive at TriTech, the new dispatching system's maker. Minneapolis is the only jurisdiction in the state to buy TriTech dispatching equipment.

"We clearly need to improve the response time," said Don Samuels, who chairs the council's public safety committee.

City officials have been touting the new dispatch system. It recently won a state-level technical award. They say it boosted the city's response to the I-35W bridge collapse. Police officials say their response times haven't suffered.

"I'd say this is a 12-cylinder computer-aided dispatch system and we're hitting on 11 right now," said John Dejung, director of MECC, the city's 911/311 department.

How the system breaks down

Jill Radeke, a dispatcher who demonstrated the system for a reporter recently, said its mapping features let her see on a screen what she previously had to visualize for herself.

The problems lie with mapping glitches and demands on dispatchers.