Counties call on legislators for help on use of E-911 funds

• Flexibility in use of E-911 funds legislative issue paper (PDF)

By Todd McGee
Communications Director

For more than a decade, North Carolina's counties have asked the Legislature for greater flexibility in allowed uses of E-911 fees. Expanding the use of these funds has been NCACC's top Justice and Public Safety goal since 1995.

Prior to 2007, cities and counties were allowed to set their own 911 service charges for landline phones, while there was a statewide charge of 80 cents per month for wireless phones. The charges for the land lines varied greatly across the state, from 25 cents per month (Wake County) to $3 (Washington County).

In 2007, the General Assembly voted to do away with local 911 service charges and to combine the wireless and land line charges, and instituted a statewide fee of 70 cents per month. The General Assembly eliminated the Wireless 911 Board and expanded the 911 Board.

The 911 Board is charged to oversee the distribution of the fees back to the Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) in accordance with existing law. The 911 Board also has the authority to lower the fee.

Under current law, these funds can only be used for equipment to answer the call, not to process the call or to ensure emergency aid is received. The 911 Board and telephone companies have resisted allowing more flexibility in the use of the 911 funds even though the citizens who pay the fee would benefit greatly from a more comprehensive 911 system.

"The 911 system does not just involve answering the phone call," said NCACC Director of Government Relations Kevin Leonard. "Some would say that the most important part of the entire system is the dispatch, when the 911 operator directs the appropriate aid to the scene. Yet the revenue being generated by the fee cannot be used to process the dispatch. It can only be used for the equipment needed to receive the call."

Two committees are reviewing this issue and are expected to make recommendations for the 2010 short session. The House Select Committee on the Use of 911 Funds met for the first time Jan. 26. The committee is co-chaired by Reps. Lucy Allen (Franklin) and Angela Bryant (Nash). Rep. Allen introduced a bill in 2009 that would have expanded the allowable uses of E-911 funds (her bill – H1480 – was eventually changed to a bill that created the select committee to study the system).

At the committee's Feb. 23 meeting, Pasquotank County Manager Randy Keaton, Franklin County 911 Director Christy Shearin and Catawba County Assistant Manager Lee Worsley made a presentation that highlighted the needs for enhanced uses of the 911 funds.

Worsley's presentation took legislators through an actual call received by the Catawba County 911 Center on Jan. 15. The caller was asking for help for a child who had fallen into a pond at an apartment complex and was unconscious.

The entire phone call took more than six minutes to process and involved dispatching resources from three different agencies – Catawba County EMS, the Hickory Fire Department and the Hickory Police Department. The 911 dispatcher had to coordinate communications between each of the agencies until they arrived on site, yet the fees generated from the 911 fund supported only the first 27 seconds of the call.

The 911 Board created a subgroup to study and make recommendations to the 911 Board, which in turn will report its findings to the General Assembly. Keaton, Shearin, Worsley and NCACC First Vice President Brian McMahan (Jackson County) served on that committee. This subgroup submitted a series of recommendations to the 911 Board. One recommendation called for increased flexibility in the use of the E-911 funds, but only if a PSAP had met certain standards regarding the type of equipment used in the facility. The 911 Board rejected this recommendation, but Leonard said that legislators are still open to this concept.

"If we can build a draft piece of legislation that will create state 911 standards, then once standards are met, add in the flexibility of 911 funds and also incentivize PSAP consolidation, then I think we're moving in the right direction," Leonard said.

Another concern for counties is the revenues that have built up in the 911 Fund. According to a report to the House Select Committee from Richard Taylor, executive director of the 911 Board, the fee has generated a fund balance of more than $90 million. Given the state's dicey budget situation, some 911 officials are nervous about the safety of that revenue.

In addition, Taylor told the committee that the 911 Board is recommending that the fee be reduced from 70 cents per month to 60 cents per month, effective July 1. Reducing the fee would negatively impact the amount of funds available to counties to upgrade their 911 systems.