Missouri County Keeps 911 Tax Rate at 10 Percent

County Keeps 911 Tax Rate at 10 Percent
By Sarah Wienke , Missourian Staff Writer

The county will be able to establish a central countywide 911 system without raising the telephone tax rate for emergency 911 services.

The Franklin County Commission Thursday set the 2008 E911 tax at 10 percent, the same rate since 2003.

"I think we can complete the project with what we have in place," said Emergency Management Agency Director Bob Dopp.

Dopp has recommended keeping the tax at 10 percent and using the money in the county's 911 fund to pay for new equipment.

The fund, which is made up of revenue from the 911 tax on landline phone bills, has a current balance of $830,000.

In 1992, county voters approved a tax ceiling of 15 percent, but the county has never collected that maximum.

Rates have varied from 6.5 percent to 11 percent since the tax was established.

Presiding Commissioner Ed Hillhouse said he looked at figures from the clerk's office, the treasurer's office and the auditor's office to make sure a 10 percent tax rate will cover the cost of operating a countywide 911 system.

Dopp said he has researched other counties in Missouri that have shifted to a similar countywide 911 plan to get an idea of how much it will cost.

The ballpark figure for equipment and updates is $700,000, he said.The county's consultant said the cost could be as much as $1 million, but officials think that figure is too high.

"This is the taxpayers' money," Dopp said. "We have to show them that we are spending it in a good way, not spending money where we don't need to."GeoComm, based out of Minneapolis, Minn., has developed a plan that will link city communication centers with a county dispatch center so fewer 911 calls have to be transferred to the appropriate dispatchers.

"We're working closely with fire departments and police departments to make sure the new system will match their systems," Dopp said. A subcommittee of EMA officials and representatives of each PSAP has been formed to guide the process and "look at the total picture."

The plan is to establish a Franklin County Emergency Communications Center in the sheriff's office.

That center will house law enforcement dispatchers, 911 call takers and fire and emergency services dispatchers.

911 calls from Union, St. Clair and unincorporated areas will be processed at the county's 911 dispatching center.

Pacific, Sullivan and Washington will continue to operate their own dispatching centers, or Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs), but will be equipped with common technology that interfaces with the county's new equipment.

This will be Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and 911 technology.

The CAD will be outfitted with mapping technology so that every call will plot onto a GIS map.

The PSAPs will be connected to the county communications center.All of the equipment will be 100 percent paid for with the 911 tax.

"Right now, we can't identify the location of 911 calls from cell phones," Dopp said.

The new, enhanced system will identify on a map where the call is coming from, increasing response time.

More than 60 percent of the county's 911 calls come from cell phones. "Dispatchers spend a lot of time trying to figure out where the call is coming from," he said.

Additionally, the county is losing tax revenue as people shift from landlines to cell phones.

Currently no tax is collected on cell phone bills to cover wireless 911 calls. Missouri is the only state in the country that does not have a state wireless service recovery fee in place to fund wireless 911 calls.

Dopp hopes that will soon change.Earlier this month, Dopp formed a delegation of county emergency officials to go to the state Capitol to meet with members of the House and Senate to lobby for changes to the way tax is collected for 911 calls.

During the two-day hearing, officials from throughout the state told legislators the financial impact Missouri counties are facing with declining revenues and how passing a surcharge for wireless calls would benefit 911 systems.

The state's public safety director, Mark James, recommended a 75-cent monthly fee per cell phone number, which would generate about $33.8 million a year to be shared among counties.

"That would help us fund our equipment and staff," Dopp said.If legislators don't pass a cell phone tax, Franklin County may have to raise the telephone emergency 911 tax rate in the future, Dopp said. "But I can't see raising that tax right now," he said, noting that each 1 percent increase only gains the county an additional $65,000 for 911 services.