Blog links
The comments sections and Site Meter statistics (no, it's not an error when you click on it, you can only look at the total number of visitors) give us links to other sites that people have referred to and come to this site from, respectively. We hereby add to the link section in the left column:
Honorable Star, who even dedicated a post to our ongoing parking crisis, and;
Second City Rookie. Head over. Give them tips on how to get along with dispatchers. We already have.
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posted by CPDDispatch @ 12:00 AM
4 Comments:
FYI....
Their are appartently a lot of mis-information in this news article, after hearing from many of the 911/ETSB coordinators in IL. This is just FYI at this point.
Funds for 911 system upgrade unspent
State tax on cell phone users collected to pay for changes
By BRUCE RUSHTON
STAFF WRITER
Published Sunday, March 04, 2007
The state of Illinois is sitting on more than $34 million in taxes collected to build emergency systems that can pinpoint the location of callers so help can arrive promptly.
The cash for 911 emergency phone systems is going unspent even as emergency responders say they don't have enough money to install 911 systems and despite the fact that more than a million Illinoisans live in communities without state-of-the- art 911 systems.
According to a 2006 report from the U.S. General Accountability Office, the auditing arm of Congress, Illinois is one of five states that might never have statewide 911 coverage that can automatically locate cell phone users.
Fewer than half of the counties in Illinois have 911 systems that can locate cell phone callers, the GAO reported, although some municipalities in those counties may have coverage.
Fourteen counties have no 911 systems at all.
More than 1.2 million people in Illinois live in communities that lack 911 systems which can precisely locate cell phone callers, according to an October report by the Illinois Commerce Commission. When these people call 911 on a cell phone, all dispatchers know is the location of the closest transmission tower and the caller's telephone number.
The 14 counties without any 911 service make up an area larger than the state of Connecticut, and dispatchers in these counties can only hope that callers have their bearings.
"We're still using by-the-rock- next-to-the- big-old-tree- beside-the- farmhouse, " said Bob Zakowski, a criminal information coordinator for the sheriff's office in Shelby County, one of the 14.
Good luck to deer hunters lost in the woods or motorists stranded in blizzards.
"I pick up the phone and say '911, what's your emergency?' and hope to heck they know where they are," said Ken Johnson, jail administrator for the sheriff's department in Moultrie County.
Johnson remembers a man who called 911 and said he had taken drugs and wanted to kill himself.
"He was trying to commit suicide down by the lake," Johnson recalled. "He knew he could see water - that narrowed it down to 50 miles. We sent everyone imaginable out. The dispatcher had him sing and recite the alphabet, so he would stay awake and hopefully make enough noise so someone could find him. We've had a few of those."
The problem in Moultrie County, Johnson said, is that voters don't want to pay for 911 service.
"We put a 911 tax on the ballot at least once, and it got killed," Johnson said. "Anytime you ask people if they want to raise taxes in a tiny little county, they say, 'Of course not.' "
But millions of dollars have been collected from cell phone users to pay for wireless 911 service. It just isn't getting spent.
Since 2000, every cell phone subscriber in Illinois outside Chicago has paid 75 cents a month to pay for wireless 911. The fee in Chicago is $1.25.
Two-thirds of the money goes to 911 systems operated by local governments. The other third goes to a fund that reimburses cell phone companies for setting up 911 systems. Under the law, companies are entitled to every penny their customers have paid into the reimbursement fund, which has swelled into the tens of millions of dollars.
There is more than $34.1 million in the reimbursement fund for wireless carriers. Money for public-sector expenses tends to get spent more quickly, but some state officials question the wisdom of giving money to whatever public agency gets into the 911 business.
Even though cell phones are mobile, the public-sector money must go to 911 systems where the subscriber lives, as opposed to paying for systems that ensure coverage no matter where the subscriber travels.
There is plenty of money available in urbanized areas, and a plethora of wireless 911 systems have sprouted in parts of Illinois. Yet other areas have no coverage at all.
Illinois has nearly 200 stand-alone 911 systems and twice that many dispatch centers connected to those systems, said Marci Schroll, 911 program manager for the Illinois Commerce Commission. Cook County has a hodgepodge of 77 independent 911 systems. Some can precisely locate callers and some cannot.
Madison County, which receives an average of $61,000 a month from the 911 tax, has 16 dispatch centers connected to one state-of-the art system.
"Can you imagine the money that's been spent on equipment in that county?" Schroll said. "Do we need 10 answering points in one county? We have too many local entities receiving the money. They don't want to consolidate. Without some oversight, there's just a lot of duplication. "
Sangamon County, which gets $56,300 from the 911 tax each month, has a single 911 system connected to one dispatch center that can locate callers.
There is no requirement for agencies that get wireless 911 money to build state-of-the- art systems. Nearly 170 agencies that provide 911 service are collecting money from the wireless 911 tax, but just 86 have equipment to locate cellular callers.
In McHenry County, a motorcyclist died last summer after driving into a cornfield at night and breaking his neck. He twice called 911, but rescuers didn't find him until a passing motorist called for help the next morning. By then, he was dead.
McHenry County, which receives an average of $85,000 a month from the wireless 911 tax, expects to have a location system operating within days.
"After this incident on McHenry County, they got on the gun and started implementing because they got bad press," Schroll said.
McHenry County officials bristle at the charge.
"That is absolutely not true," said Theresa Carlson, 911 coordinator for McHenry County. "Prior to that incident, we had already been making plans. "
Even while millions of dollars in taxes for wireless 911 have gone unspent, some are calling for a tax hike to pay 911 costs. A bill before the legislature would boost the monthly fee for wireless 911 from 75 cents to $1.50.
"It should be an incentive to all those 911 centers in the state to upgrade," said Morrie Farbman, executive director for the Cook County Emergency Telephone System Board. "If it passes, I think it will benefit the whole state."
State Rep. Donald Moffitt, R-Galesburg, sponsor of the fee hike, said 911 systems are losing money as people embrace cell phones and abandon land lines, which often have monthly surcharges that are used to pay for wired 911 systems. The monthly fees for land lines are typically twice as high as for cell phones, Moffitt said, so losses from disconnected land lines can mount quickly.
The cell phone industry opposes the tax hike, and Moffitt's bill didn't make it out of committee last week.
Douglas Dougherty, president of the Illinois Telecommunications Association, pointed out that millions of dollars of wireless 911 money remains unspent. So doubling the tax isn't necessary, he said.
But the ITA isn't opposing a bill backed by the Illinois Commerce Commission that would allow public 911 agencies to take money from the reimbursement fund that is now set aside for wireless carriers.
"As long as the fee isn't increased and there's a better use for that money, it's OK," Dougherty said.
Bruce Rushton can be reached at 788-1542 or bruce.rushton@ sj-r.com.
Indiana cut cell phone tax after system was completed
By BRUCE RUSHTON
STAFF WRITER
Once a tax is created, it never goes away.
That's the old saying. But it isn't necessarily true, at least in Indiana, where the state last year reduced its monthly wireless 911 fee after completing a statewide system that automatically locates anyone who dials 911 from a cell phone anywhere in the state.
Indiana is one of a dozen states that have installed statewide wireless 911 systems that automatically locate cell phone callers. And Indiana accomplished the mission with a lower fee - 65 cents per month - than Illinois residents pay.
Once Indiana finished its system last year, the state reduced the fee to 50 cents per month. It started collecting the tax in 1999, a year earlier than in Illinois.
With a statewide system in place, Indiana has used the money to create a fiber-optic system that links every 911 center so emergency officials throughout the state can easily communicate with each other, said Ken Lowden, executive director of the Indiana Wireless 911 Board. With that task complete, the state now wants to create links between its 911 systems and systems in bordering states, including Illinois, so dispatchers can communicate with each other and transfer calls and data, Lowden said.
But there have been some hurdles.
"You have some counties in Illinois, when I started checking, that do not have 911," Lowden said. "That concerned us. It's something we will have to address."
Lowden said Indiana's success in creating a state-of-the- art 911 system is due to a commitment from legislators who created the tax eight years ago and put an elected official, the state treasurer, in charge of the program.
"Every state has got its own way of wanting to do business," Lowden said.
"Everything in Indiana is controlled by the Indiana Wireless Board. We're the only state in the U.S. who has a state elected official responsible for 911. In other states, it's buried two or four levels deep in other departments. "
Marci Schroll, 911 program manager for the Illinois Commerce Commission, agreed that a strong centralized authority makes a difference in providing cost-efficient, effective 911 service.
"Illinois' funding mechanism probably needs to be looked at so we can get 100-percent coverage," Schroll said. "The problem is, locals don't want to give up control."
Lawmakers dip into 911 funds
By BRUCE RUSHTON
STAFF WRITER
At $9 per year for every cell phone user, taxes on cell phones for 911 service add up quickly.
More than $54.5 million was collected in fiscal year 2006. Such a large pot of money has proven irresistible to Gov. Rod Blagojevich and state lawmakers.
The state in fiscal year 2007 is taking nearly $1.6 million out of the fund that is supposed to be set aside for public 911 agencies and almost $10.2 million out of the reimbursement fund that's reserved for wireless carriers to pay their costs.
That adds up to almost $12 million in 911 money diverted to balance the state budget instead of being spent to ensure the safety of the cell phone users who pay the tax.
The governor's office makes no apologies, pointing out that the fund transfers were done with legislative approval.
"These funds have historically maintained a balance that far exceeds their annual expenses, and the surplus was transferred to the general fund for critical operations," said Justin DeJong, spokesman for the governor's office of management and budget. "There is a very comfortable reserve that we continue to maintain."
The comptroller' s office on Feb. 23 reported the reimbursement fund for wireless carriers contained slightly more than $34.1 million. So far this budget year, cell phone users have paid nearly $28 million into the fund for public 911 agencies, which have spent all but $3.6 million, according to comptroller records.
The cell phone industry opposes raiding 911 funds for other purposes.
"I think that's bad public policy," said Doug Dougherty, president of the Illinois Telecommunication Association. "I think 911 money ought to go to 911 systems."
Some legislators agree.
State Rep. Donald Moffitt, R-Galesburg, is sponsoring legislation that would prohibit the state from using wireless 911 taxes for anything except wireless 911. Taxes paid by cell phone users should be spent on what their phone bills say the money is being collected for, he said.
"It should be a protected fund," he said.
Just dropping by saying hello to my fave dispatchers ;)
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It is so essential to have updated technology when lives are on the line. I hope the state and country legislators get their acts together. This economy is tightening already tight 911 budgets. We have tried to get a new system but there's no money to do it. Our local government won't approve taxes. We have found a company that has a great system for a great price, but still can't get our funds lined up. They are called Valor Systems. They are from the Chicago suburbs. We have been on our current system since 2002 and it is outdated. What are your experiences with getting funding approved?
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