911 dispatcher here. Most non-emergency lines go to 911 operators. The big difference being the priority at which calls get answered. As well as a few procedural differences in how you handle call hang ups and the need to put a line on hold.

Every center is different. But at ours, we have a “priority answer” button we push when answering a ringing line. If there are multiple lines ringing, it prioritizes first by type of line (911 > non- emergency > internal communication line > other agency “hot lines”). After that it prioritizes by which call was placed first.

And like anything else, every center is different and operates differently. Another local agency used to have call takers that would take all initial calls from the public (911 and non-emergency) and would figure out what was happening, triage the call and then forward to the appropriate dispatcher, but would handle non-emergency calls themselves. I think they recently stopped doing that and trained everyone to do everything.

And while on the OPs topic, yes it’s a good idea to know your local non-emergency number or have it programmed in your phone. But, as a dispatcher, I’d much rather someone call in a non-emergency on 911 than an emergency on the non-emergency lines. There are people that are so scared to dial 911 they’ll call a legit emergency on the non-emergency line and us dispatchers lose some critical information. We only get location information on 911. If you call non-emergency, all we get is regular caller ID. So when in doubt, just use 911.