Rural Counties Call For Help On 911 Senate Asked To Extend Tax Providing Funds For Costly New Emergency Dispatch Centers

Rural counties throughout Eastern Washington are waging a last-minute battle to get the state Senate to extend a tax for new emergency dispatching centers before the Legislature adjourns this month.

So far, they’re losing.

A bill that passed the House 98-0 is bottled up in the Senate Ways and Means Committee and has little chance of reaching the floor - where county officials believe there is enough support for passage.

The eastern district of the Washington State Association of Counties is appealing for the full Senate to override the Ways and Means Committee. Association leaders believe the primary obstacle is Boeing and other companies with numerous telephones.

County officials say the tax extension is necessary to provide dispatchers costly new “enhanced 911” dispatching centers. Under state law, they must be in place by Dec. 31, 1998.

That’s not a big problem for urban counties that have long had regular 911 service, lacking only the ability to pinpoint the location of callers. But many small rural counties must make a giant leap.

Modern 911 dispatching centers require specially trained employees who do nothing else. The centers typically are isolated from other county offices because large, specialized equipment requires construction of new buildings or annexes. That means one person can no longer be a jailer, receptionist and dispatcher at the same time.

The problem is most acute in cash-strapped Ferry County, where nine full-time employees had to be added to the payroll when a new 911 dispatching center opened last fall. Not only were more dispatchers needed, but additional jailers had to be hired to replace the people who were transferred to the new 911 building.

A 20-cent-per-month statewide tax on telephone bills is paying for 4 of the new positions, but the assistance will be reduced by one-third on June 30.

When that happens, Ferry County will have to start paying for another of the new positions. The county doesn’t have enough money for that, let alone the additional positions it will have to cover when the state assistance is reduced again in June 1998, then eliminated a year after that, according to 911 Director Rose Parr.

She and other county officials hope the state 911 office will not phase out the assistance so quickly if the Senate approves the proposed two-year extension of the 20-cent telephone tax. Without the extension, the tax will drop to 10 cents at the end of 1998.

The tax was established when voters approved a statewide referendum in 1991. It was to supplement a 50-cent-a-month local phone tax that raises enough money only in urban areas.

State 911 administrator Bob Oenning agreed with county officials that a “primary selling point” for the referendum was that it would benefit travelers by helping make 911 service available throughout the state. As a rule of thumb, he said, the standard 50-cent tax doesn’t generate enough money in counties with fewer than 40,000 residents.

With only one city and a countywide population of just 7,200, Ferry County “is probably the best example in the state” of the need for outside assistance, Oenning said.

The 50-cent tax generates only about $18,000 a year, but dispatching salaries total $195,542 before fringe benefits are added.

Ways and Means Chairman Jim West, R-Spokane, said the issue is “much ado about nothing” because the 20-cent tax won’t drop to 10 cents until long after the Legislature meets again next January.

“The world is not going to stop spinning, and the Legislature is not going to stop meeting, so what’s the rush?” West said. , DataTimes