MORGANTOWN — Monongalia County Homeland Security and Emergency Management / MECCA 911 Director Jimmy Smith and his peers across West Virginia are watching a bill introduced in the West Virginia Senate this past week that, Smith says, would eliminate an increase in enhanced 911 (E 911) funds remitted to the counties barely a year after the raise was enacted.
Smith estimates passage of Senate Bill 289 as presented would cost Monongalia County about $140,000 annually.
When the state’s E 911 bill was originally passed in 1997, it included a mandatory biennial audit. In 2017, the audit called for its first increase, from $3 to $3.34, resulting in an 11 percent increase in the amount money distributed to 911 centers, from $2.67 to $3.01. The rest of the fee is divided up between homeland security, state police and funds for cell towers.
SB 289 was presented last week on behalf of Governor Jim Justice and is an attempt to remedy problems identified by the Federal Communications Commission regarding the state’s handling of E 911 funds.
Basically, according to Smith, the bill would drop the portion of the fee remitted to the counties back to $2.67 and create a new Public Safety Fee of 34 cents that would encompass the revenue for homeland security (15 cents), state police (10 cents) and tower funding (9 cents).
Cellular 911 fees are added to cell phone bills by the state and disbursed quarterly to the counties. The county has a $3 monthly 911 fee on land lines, but that revenue has fallen drastically as more people rely exclusively on cell phones.
“There has been a continuous decrease in 911 fees through land lines coming in. As people go away from having a home phone, and we see that more and more every year, those funds continue to decline. So it was great last year to see that increase on the cellular end to help make up for some of the 911 fees that we’ve lost,” Smith said. “Now for them to take that away and basically ignore the 2017 audit, we’ll have to reevaluate our budget to figure out how we’re going to make up that money.”
Smith said Monongalia County and West Virginia are not alone in dealing with this issue. He noted there have been a number of potential solutions proposed.
“Every county in the country is experiencing the same thing with the decrease in land lines. Everybody is seeing a decrease in 911 revenue,” Smith said. “There have been suggestions that maybe an alternate system needs to be put in instead of putting 911 fees on landlines, maybe putting that on a power meter bill. But with those fees continuing to decline, I just don’t think this is the time to disregard the audit calling for an increase.”
