Raiding the Public’s Safety
By: Lexi Herman
As a child, 9-1-1 is drilled into your head by parents and teachers alike so you can act if ever there is an emergency. We know the number and, unfortunately, many of us may have to make this call at some point in our lives. But what do consumers really know about how 911 services operate? It seems unlikely that anyone considers how 911 is governed or financed.
To be candid, it took a lot of careful reading of often long-winded statutes to find this information, but in the end, the information found was worth all the effort because a 911 call is the most important call anyone will ever make.
Before going into all the details, I first want to explain some basic 911 concepts. The current 911 system which states have in place is known as Enhanced 911 (“E911”). This system allows emergency callers to reach first responders via a Public Safety Answering Point (“PSAP”) which is a call center that provides responders the callback and location information. However, with technology advancing as quickly as it is, states are looking to update their emergency services system to what is known as Next Generation 911 (“NG911”). NG911 will require an update to the existing 911 infrastructure to allow PSAPs to receive voice, text, video, and multimedia messages.
In addition to understanding these basic 911 concepts, one should also know that currently there is no national standard for 911 governance and oversight. This means each individual state has a different agency that governs their 911 fund. Some funds are governed by the state’s Public Utility Commission, while others have created an agency that only has jurisdiction over 911 matters.
Since there is no national standard, every state’s statutory authority differs as well. Likewise, each state has a different surcharge amount. All this to say, no one state’s 911 governance is identical to another. However, one thing remains the same; no matter which state a person resides in, consumers are the ones who are responsible for paying these fees.
When a consumer looks at their wireless or wireline bill every month, you will see a “911 service fee” and when one thinks of it in terms of, “this fee is going to the brave men and women who are risking their life to save my own” the fee seems pretty insubstantial. What is not insubstantial is the amount of funds some states take each year away from consumers’ public safety and these brave first responders.
In 2009, the Associated Press reported that nearly $200 million dollars collected from consumers in order to maintain and update the current 911 system was diverted to plug state budget holes or used in a manner that was not consistent with supporting the true operations of the 911 system. According to the article, only 19 cents of the $1.20 New York residents pay each month actually go to emergency calling services. But New York isn’t the only state diverting funds away from these lifesaving services. Wisconsin increased consumers’ 911 surcharge under the guise that this increased fee would allow for necessary maintenance and upgrades to the system, only to divert nearly $100 million dollars over the next 2 years to reduce the state’s deficit.
In order to combat this raiding of funds, some states have implemented regulations that require a state to certify that they have not diverted 911 funds for other purposes in the last 6 months before they are approved for federal funding. However, these regulations haven’t always proved to be a sufficient disincentive. Here is one example: New York’s 911 surcharges is $1.20 per phone number which means in 15 years, the state has collected over $600 million dollars, yet in those same 15 years only $84 million dollars were given to municipalities that operate 911 centers.
The federal government has also attempted to rein in states’ raiding of 911 funds. The Federal Communications Committee (“FCC”) is trying to combat this bad behavior by adding a new section to the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999. The section was enacted to “ensure efficiency, transparency, and accountability in the collection and expenditure of a fee or charge for the support or implementation of 9-1-1 or enhanced 9-1-1 services”. The FCC plans on enforcing this by submitting a report each year to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce detailing how these fees are distributed in each state.
In the FCC’s 2009 report, 12 states disclosed that they used some portion of their 911 funding to support other programs and an additional 7 states admitted they were unable to determine whether fees were used exclusively for 911 programs. With increased public scrutiny associated with the FCC request, by 2011, only 7 states reported using some portion of their 911 fees to support other programs.
Perhaps national annual reporting requirements are what is necessary to ensure states use consumers’ 911 fees properly. What is necessary to ensure funds are used properly is for the PSAPs, local legislators and consumers to engage in a continual dialogue with and stand up to state legislators when they request the funds to be diverted.
Who better to oppose state legislators raiding of 911 funds than those who are harmed by such raiding? Raiding of funds means PSAPs might not be able to upgrade to NG 911 while maintaining E911. But PSAPs won’t be the only ones who are harmed: so are consumers who won’t be able to send texts, video, or picture messages to 911 in the event of an emergency. These are features that could not only help police track down a suspect, but save numerous lives in situations where calling the police might not be possible. In addition, these features could change the way those who are visually and hearing impaired use a multimedia platform to reach 911. However, this will not be possible without PSAPs, local legislators and consumers speaking up and preventing states from gouging emergency funds for other purposes.
What this issue needs is even more transparency. To do that, the aforementioned groups must work alongside carriers and the FCC to call upon Congress to pass legislation that prevents states from raiding their 911 fees. Hopefully, as FCC Chairman Wheeler stated, shining a spotlight on this problem will make all the difference.