LEE COUNTY – A last-minute, and almost literally last minute, bill that was sent to the governor’s office last week has 911 boards across the state full throated about critical potential revenue cuts.
Tony Keefe, director of LeeComm, the county’s 911 dispatch center operating out of the Lee County Sheriff’s office building, told Lee County Supervisors Tuesday morning that a bill was attached to an appropriation in the early morning hours of May 14, minutes before the session ended.
Keefe had told Supervisors last week that, although he had been told that a bill probably wouldn’t make it out of the session this year, it was something that the board needed to keep a close eye on.
On Tuesday, he said the bill that was shoved over the finish line, Senate File 659, says the Iowa 911 Program, which is part of the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, can reimburse local 911 service boards for “reasonable costs” associated with processing 911 calls.
Keefe explained that 911 calls hit local towers and then are relayed to a switch he believes is in Des Moines, and then relayed seamlessly back to local 911 Public Service Answering Points (PSAP) in a matter of seconds.
The intent of the system and its projected Next Gen 911 enhancements is to centralize all emergency communications in the state. With every call being “processed” at that switch, the Iowa 911 Program could, in theory, bill each local 911 service board per call as a “reasonable” cost.
But Keefe said Tuesday afternoon he’s heard some preliminary numbers from legislators that charge could be in the range of $30,000/year.
“None of the directors that I've talked to have had access to about how much it's going to cost to implement these changes, but they've come up with a formula that they're going to bill the local boards, and a very rough number that I was given today, just in the last couple of hours, that was $30,000 a year to pay for Next Gen 911 upgrades,” Keefe said
“They’re expecting to be short at the end of their next fiscal year, so they're taking the money from local boards to make up for it.”
Keefe had told the board last week that the state was looking at taking a part of the surcharge paid by Iowans on their phone lines. That reduction in revenue would have left the Lee County 911 services board’s reserve funds dry up in 19 years. He said if the county has to lose $30,000 a year in revenue to the state, that fund would dry up in just 11 years.
Lee County Chairwoman Denise Fraise said the bill is a result of the state not handling their business correctly.
“I think it was very poor planning on the state’s part. I mean, if they've known about this, what, since 2002?, and they never worried where they were going to get the money?” she queried
“I don't understand. I just think it's very poor planning on their part and they should not just automatically come to the county.”
State Sen. Jeff Reichman said the HSEM is looking at a shortage of $3 million over three years in funding the Next Gen 911 system and said the math would lead to about $30,000 if you divide the cost evenly across all 111 PSAPs.
“I guess you could come to that amount, but I would assume what they'll do is look at a per call basis, or per population served, and divvy it up accordingly,” Reichman said.
He said that’s taking the $3,000,000 shortfall against the $66 million surplus across all the PSAPs.
“So the state is only asking them for help to keep updates to a system that they've generated $66 million off of,” Reichman said.
When asked if the state would consider using any of its $6 billion surplus in tax relief fund and budget surplus, Reichman said the state has carefully worked tax breaks to Iowans and now it’s like landing a plane.
“I like the airplane analogy. You’re coming to the runway, you're decreasing your taxable income, which is the state’s revenue. You're decreasing the revenue, so you're decreasing altitude,” he said.
“You've got to touch down on the runway, but you don't want to smash it down so you can’t decrease revenue too much, and you don't want to overshoot the runway by collecting too much. So, we are on the glide slope to make the landing to come in to the budget.”
He said the Taxpayer Relief Fund is part of the soft landing, as is the rainy day fund.
Reichman said if the local 911 boards are making money off the system and the system needs upgraded, they should share in the cost of the upgrades.
Reichman said Keefe’s solution was to increase the surcharge to tax people more.
“His solution is to raise the surcharge and collect more revenue from the people who’ve already been “revenued” enough,” he said.
Keefe submitted a letter to the board for their consideration in opposition to the bill. He said there is sufficient support to give the Governor cover in not vetoing the 911 line item in the appropriation. Governor Reynolds has the authority to veto a portion of a bill while allowing the rest to go through.
Keefe’s letter said the provision of the bill “poses a direct and immediate threat to the integrity and reliability of 911 services in rural Iowa at the local level.”
“In Lee County, where we have already been identified as holding over $500,000 in unassigned 911 surcharge balances, these funds are not idle or unnecessary—they are carefully earmarked for mission-critical infrastructure and operational needs that exceed our annual revenue of $317,000. Specifically, we rely on these funds for:
• Maintenance contracts on our radio system – $235,000 annually
• Call-taking and disposition software – CAD, GIS, 911 mapping, ICN connections, and IOWA/NCIC costs totaling $48,000
• Street and 911 signage maintenance – $10,000 annually, ensuring accurate location data for responders
• Infrastructure upgrades – including computers, cybersecurity protections, and facility improvements totaling $50,000 per year."
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