Megan Green , president of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen , isn’t buying it. For roughly a decade beginning in the mid-2000s, response times for most calls remained relatively stable, according to the Post-Dispatch analysis. Response timesPolice clock response times in two basic parts: The time it takes a dispatcher to send an officer. “The number one thing that affects response times is staffing levels,” she said. Departments across the country have experienced a similar fall in staffing and rise in response times.