911 director issues more fund warnings

911 calling 911

Right now, we are operating the service board at a deficit. We do have reserves of about a million dollars and that million is gonna get ate up between 8 and 10 years. With the way the technology is going, I can tell you there's nowhere to cut”

Tony Keefe, Lee County 911 Director

LEE COUNTY – The director of Lee County’s 911 Service board said another proposal will be forwarded to state legislators to boost the surcharge on cellphone lines to help offset statewide shortages, and prepare for a transition to NextGen 911 service in Iowa.
Tony Keefe, 911 Director, said local service boards are facing deficits under a new law passed that allows Iowa Homeland Security to bill local service boards to offset their shortfalls. He said something has to change before local 911 boards run out of funds to maintain sufficient service levels.
“We’re kind of hitting legislators hard with coming to a resolution to help make up some of the shortfall at the state level, instead of coming back to local service boards and taking our reserve fund,” Keefe told Lee County Supervisors at Tuesday’s regular meeting.
He said Lee County already paid their first quarterly bill to the state for $3,175.60, and that number will continue to grow over the next eight quarters. He said the state is facing a shortfall of $4.4 million over the same eight quarters.
“So each quarter, they go further into the hole which means, by law, we have to help make up that shortfall,” he said.
“Right now, we are operating the service board at a deficit. We do have reserves of about a million dollars and that million is gonna get ate up between 8 and 10 years. With the way the technology is going, I can tell you there's nowhere to cut.”
He said the technology is moving fast and the Federal Communications Commission is mandating changes from  the current Enhanced 911 service to NextGen 911 service and that transition will require technology upgrades and equipment upgrades at the local level.
Keefe said Lee County was outpacing Enhanced 911, but they are far behind in upgrades where it pertains to NextGen services. He said the pain is being felt across the state even in the larger counties.
Last year, a collaborative effort from 911 service board directors including Keefe, resulted in a legislative proposal that would have increased the surcharge on cellphones for 911 services to $1.20 from the current $1 per line. Keefe said that proposal didn’t gain any traction and this year they are proposing an increase of 15 cents. The rate has been $1 since 2013.
“Obviously, more people are using cell phones now and moved away from land lines, but the technology has outgrown that cost. So we asked for, I think, like $1.20 to go on your cell phone bills per line. That didn't even make it to the legislature, so this year they put together a proposal and they're going back and asking to raise that to $1.15,” he said.
He said 60% of that $1 surcharge comes back to Iowa counties, which is a little more than $5 million. Lee County’s portion is approximately $317,000. The new rate would increase the state’s share of the fund by $3.7 million which would make up some of that shortfall and would not take from local service boards. The new rate would also boost the contribution to local service boards by about $860,000 across all 911 boards in the state.
Keefe said 911 service boards across the state currently have close to a combined $30 million in reserve funds, which he said seems like a lot of money. It’s also where state legislators saw an opportunity to help offset the Homeland Security shortfall and passed legislation allowing the state to bill local 911 boards.
But he said with the state taking from those funds and the upgrades that will be needed moving forward, that funding won’t be sufficient for local boards across the state in the next seven to 10 years.
“The major upgrades that we're going to face is we have to have our towers and our dispatch consoles upgraded by 2032. That is a mandate from Motorola in order for our towers and equipment to be quote-unquote up-to-date and serviceable,” Keefe said. “And that bill is just over $4 million.”
Supervisor Garry Seyb said he wanted everyone to know that reserve funds for the service board are not literally “reserves”.
“When you hear a million dollars in reserve, that is not a “reserve”. Consider that an operational budget, because that is money that we're going to have to have or money that we're going to have to bond for or do some other thing to be able to pay the bill seven years from now, in 2032.” Seyb said.
“My brain says ‘Well, that’s a long way off'. It is not. We’re a month away from 2026.”
Supervisor Denise Fraise asked how Motorola can mandate anything to the county. Keefe said it’s technically not a mandate, but if the county doesn’t keep pace with the upgrades recommended by Motorola, they will quickly fall dangerously behind.
Keefe said one example of maintenance is the crystals in the radio that need to be aligned every couple of years and that’s $187 per radio. There are 500 radios in the county.
“That’s a big expense that we didn’t know at the time when we built this $5 million radio project,” Keefe said.
He said the Hilton tower has been hit by lightning three times causing $60,000 in damages. The damage was covered by insurance less deductibles that Keefe said were “pretty pricey”.
He said the state is also moving the two data centers. One in Davenport is moving to (Council Bluffs) and the backup in West Des Moines is being moved to Raleigh, North Carolina. He said if something were to happen at the primary call logic center (CLC) in Council Bluffs, all wireless 911 calls would then be routed through Raleigh and back to Lee County.
“Those are the type of expenses they experienced that they didn’t plan on doing,” Keefe said. “So I get why they are in a shortfall, but I continue to hear cut property taxes, freeze property taxes, cut taxes. But the 911 surcharge is not a tax. It’s a charge you pay on your cellphone bill. If we could get that surcharge raised to a level that matches inflation over the last 12 or 13 years, we could fund all of (Public Safety Answering Point) with 911 surcharge.”
Seyb said not everyone has to have a cellphone, but everyone who calls 911 expects someone to show up, and to keep that technology running, something has to be done and taking money from local boards doesn’t make sense.
Supervisor Ginger Knisely said a dollar or two on a cellphone bill is much more palatable to taxpayers than a bond issue to pay for multimillion dollar technical upgrades.