The verb to escalate is usually
intransitive, meaning to get worse: the
Cuban Missile Crisis could have escalated, had the
Soviets not backed down.
There is a degenerate
transitive use, meaning to make worse: the situation in
Northern Ireland was escalated by the intervention of troops.
Then there's the tech support/business jargon usage, which is
just plain wrong. That said, referring something to the boss usually will make it worse.