Missouri lawmakers consider new tax for 911 funding

CAPE GIRARDEAU — Faced with a growing need for funding for Emergency 911 services, state lawmakers are considering asking voters to approve a new tax on cell phones.

But the ballot initiative could have a serious catch — consolidating some of state's E-911 call centers.

State Sen. Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau, last week pointed out there are 174 individual call centers in the state's 117 counties, including two across the street from each other in Chillicothe. He said any effort to provide funding for E-911 service must be tied to making the network more efficient.

"You're never, ever going to get the money until you consolidate," Crowell told Cape Girardeau County officials last week. "I'll force you. I'll starve you down to it, if you're not going to do it of your own free will."

Crowell said he'd prefer five call centers, including one in each quadrant of the state plus one in the center.

State Sen. John Griesheimer, R-Washington, is proposing a 25-cent cell phone tax, which would be placed on the ballot and allow the state to determine who gets funding.

Voters have twice shot down proposals to fund E-911 services through cell phone taxes. Technically considered radio devices, cell phones avoid many of the taxes now levied on land-line phones, including E-911 charges. As more people switch to wireless devices, the funding source for E-911 has diminished.

At the same time, call centers are fielding more 911 calls, requiring more dispatchers. It's a need Crowell said he understands.

"I know how important it is," he said. "But by gosh we can do it more efficiently, and that's what the taxpayers deserve, and that's what the taxpayers demand."

Scott County Sheriff Rick Walter said he's discussed consolidating call centers with surrounding communities.

"I'm for (consolidation) as long as we can make it work and be efficient," Walter said. "You have to look at it from a business point of view."

Walter said the current E-911 funding he receives is $64,000 a year less than what it costs to provide the service, which has led him over the past month to lay off two part-time deputies and not fill open full-time deputy slots.

While he could see a regional center serving southeast Missouri, he said he'd still be responsible for sending his deputies to answer calls.

Mark Hasheider, assistant fire chief and emergency operations manager for Cape Girardeau, said cutting the state to five regional call centers "would be stretching it."

He said the technology for consolidation is available, but a dispatcher sending out a fire truck 100 miles away would lack the local knowledge helpful in an emergency, such as knowing which roads have more than one name.

"I'm not against the consolidation of 911 centers," Hasheider said. "In some counties, that would be very beneficial, especially for counties that do not have 911 service as we know it today."

Hasheider said he would want to make sure the officials understood the responsibilities of dispatchers in consolidated call centers, whether the calls would be forwarded or dispatched directly and what backup system would be in place if a call center was knocked out of action.

He said Cape Girardeau's three call centers "are working. It's not a broken system."

During a hearing last week, Griesheimer, the phone tax bill's author, asked R.D. Porter, the state's 911 coordinator, to help the counties "come up with a number" for possibly consolidating the centers.

Griesheimer said he wanted to see that number before the full Senate votes on his bill, and said he wanted the vote to happen before lawmakers take their spring break the middle of next month.