CLEARFIELD – On Tuesday, the Clearfield County Commissioners passed a resolution to support 911 funding and system reform, as well as to urge the Pennsylvania General Assembly to amend the state statutes regarding Emergency Telephone Services, formerly the Public Safety Emergency Telephone Act.
According to the commissioners’ resolution, the PSETA gave Pennsylvania county government responsibility for implementing and managing a system of 911 call taking on behalf of the citizens; setting in place planning processes and lines of authority between counties and the state Emergency Management Agency (PEMA); and a funding stream based upon telephone subscriber surcharges.
Under counties’ stewardship, the Pennsylvania 911 system has evolved into one of the most up-to-date in the United States with almost complete Enhanced 911 coverage. It provides locator systems for wireline, wireless and VoIP calls; the fewest Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) per capita among large states; and a commitment to moving forward with Next Generation 911 technologies, states the commissioners’ resolution.
In the resolution, the commissioners stated: “The 911 system faces significant challenges to meet rapidly changing technology requirements, a funding stream whose failure to keep pace with needs requires counties to rely both heavily and increasingly on the property tax, and the June 30, 2015, sunset of one key funding source, the wireless telephone surcharge.
“The Act currently keys in planning, administrative and audit functions separately to different communications technologies, inhibiting counties’ ability to manage the system, to incorporate shared services or to implement system efficiencies.
“The intent of the original law was to fully fund counties’ eligible 911 costs. The current subscriber fee structure is a monthly surcharge on wireline, wireless and VoIP subscribers, ranging from $1 to $1.50 per month for wireline, and set at $1 per month for wireless and VoIP.”
According to the commissioners’ resolution, the wireline fees have not changed since the Act’s passage in 1990 and the wireless and VoIP fees, although adopted later, were keyed to the 1990 wirelines rates, all of which, if adjusted for inflation alone, would mean fees of at least $1.72.
According to the commissioners’ resolution, over the years, counties have adapted and upgraded 911 systems to meet unanticipated technology changes, including locator systems, and are now actively planning the upcoming technology needs, including Next Generation 911 text, video and other social media.
“The onslaught of technological changes was unforeseen and dramatically altered the ability of the funding structure to meet county needs for both operating and capital costs with the current funding structure covering only 19 percent of Clearfield County’s cost to provide this vital service with the remainder drawn from property tax revenues,” stated the commissioners’ resolution.
The commissioners’ resolution noted that: “The need to address the funding stream is immediate and will reach crisis proportions if action is delayed past the June 30, 2015 expiration of the wireless telephone subscriber surcharge.”
By passing the resolution, Commissioner Joan Robinson-McMillen, chair, said they were joining the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania in support of a “comprehensive rewrite” of Chapter 53 of Title 35. She said the Clearfield commissioners support a reform bill that is “technology-neutral,” allowing counties to develop systems meeting current and future needs.
She said that the commissioners support a reform bill that combines planning, administrative, funding and audit provisions into a single, consolidated whole, affording counties the best opportunity to manage effectively, to facilitate shared services, to incorporate system efficiencies and to readily adapt to new technologies.
Also, Robinson-McMillen said that the commissioners support a reform bill that increases 911 subscriber fees to a level that fully supports current and Next Generation 911 operations and which keys the fees to inflation or allows for other mechanisms to provide regular adjustments to meet system needs.
“To break it down into simple terms, it’s the money the counties have had to invest, particularly, rural counties like Clearfield, because we have a lot of cellular phones passing down I-80 with emergency calls being placed, a shrinking base of landlines, etc., and we have to maintain and continually upgrade our tracking networks to identify where cellular phone calls are being made from in this big area that is Clearfield County,” explained Commissioner Mark B. McCracken.
“That’s what this is addressing …. You get 911 calls now for people who become lost while out hiking or for accidents while out canoeing on the river. The only way to figure out from where these calls are being made is by keeping up with the technology, which is what we and other counties are struggling with.”
The commissioners will send a copy of their resolution to the Clearfield County legislative delegation, Gov. Tom Wolf, to the PEMA director and the CCAP.