Surcharge decision could head to voters

Come next March, county voters could be deciding the fate of a $2.52 monthly telephone surcharge to fund 911 emergency services over the next five years. On Tuesday, July 7, Lenawee County commissioners in committee voted 8-0 to put the decision in front of voters after the county’s 911 board approved of a five-year plan calling for a $3 surcharge. A decision of the commission is needed by September to prepare for a March vote and Wednesday, July 8, the commission decided to delay that decision for a month. Lenawee County’s 911 dispatch is expected to begin to run a deficit in this year’s $1.63 million budget after exhausting its cash reserves, according to news reports. The $2.52 surcharge was originally approved by voters in 2004 and renewed in 2006 before it was reduced to $1.18 in 2008 by the state legislature, which is where the charge currently stands. Operational cost is expected to be more than $1 million a year short for additional staff and equipment upgrades in the coming years, according to the 911 board’s proposed plan. The 911 board created a subcommittee to investigate where dispatch needed to be in five years in terms of staffing and equipment, and estimate the cost. The $2.52 surcharge, if passed, would generate $2.4 million a year for the 911 dispatch, said Lenawee County Commission chairman David Stimpson, R-Tecumseh, according to news reports. The 911 board’s proposal of $3, the maximum allowed by statute, was estimated to generate $2.9 million a year and would help pay for an estimated $3.2 million 800-megahertz radio conversion. Tecumseh Police Chief Troy Stern, chairman of the 911 board, said the 911 dispatch center has been running on reserve funds from when the $2.52 monthly surcharge was implemented and the request to raise the current surcharge fee came from future upgrades needed in the next five to seven years. In 2013, The Federal Communications Commission recently implemented a practice called narrowbanding, dictating what frequency public safety radios can operate in.“There’s been so many changes in the public safety radio network over the last few years,” Stern said, adding the changes have drastically reduced reception and transmission abilities by about 15 percent. What will help increase those abilities for county public safety and emergency services remains to be seen. The 800-megahertz proposal the board designed could change. “There is just so much new technology and it’s coming down on us every day,” Stern said. “That’s what makes the five-year plan such a moving target because we don’t know where we will be.” Costs 911 dispatch incur are personnel and equipment costs, tower rental fees, rental fees to the Lenawee County Sheriff’s Office and infrastructure maintenance fees.