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E-911 pushing for rate increase The Clarke County Commission will consider raising the tariff on phone bills to benefit the E- 911 system at its next meeting on June 25. The tariffs have not gone up since they have been collected, starting over 10 years ago but E- 911 Director Becky Neugent explained that 911 services are better. Commissioner Rhondel Rhone also noted at Monday's 911 meeting that the county heavily subsidizes the 91l operation. The 911 budget runs about $400,000 annually and Rhone estimated that the county contributes about $100,000 of that from the general fund. Clarke County residential phone customers currently pay 75 cents per month for 911. Businesses pay $1.88 per phone. The law allows for a tariff not to exceed 5 percent of a phone bill. Cell phone customers pay much less, less than a quarter of a cent per phone. Neugent said one of the problems is that people are continuing to disconnect their land phone lines in favor of cell phones. Currently, 911 realizes only about $9,700 from the tariffs per month and Neugent said that covers only a portion of the system's expenses. Choctaw County collects $3.10 per month per phone line from both residential and business customers. Wilcox County collects $3.23 a month from residents and businesses and Washington County collects $2 a month from each. Those are the highest rates collected in the state. Clarke County's 75-cent residential tariff is the lowest in the state, according to a handout provided by Neugent. Lawrence County collects 80 cents from residential customers. Many counties collect $1 or more to as much as $2. A handful, however, do not collect anything. The local 911 system has updated its equipment and recently moved into new and larger courthouse quarters on the renovated second floor of the old jail. Neugent described new services Monday, including the Global CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) system that should be on line this week. It is a mapping system that allows dis- patchers to see where calls are coming from and to have historical data on hand for phone numbers. New equipment will also allow dispatchers to better pinpoint where cell phone calls come from. Now, calls can be traced to a regional tower but can't be pinpointed any closer. The renovated quarters and upgrades cost just under $300,000 but commissioners said that money came from the county's share of Capital Fund Oil and Gas lease funds. Tariff dollars are used only for the operation and maintenance of the 911 system. After hearing details from Neugent, Commission Chairman Joe Hunt asked her if she had a recommendation to make for an increase and she replied she thought that would be up to commissioners to decide. Commissioner Paul Bradford motioned that the 911 meeting be recessed and reconvened after the June 25 commission meeting to consider the tariff. He smiled as he noted that would give commissioners time to consider the matter and to receive feedback from constituents. Neugent described the CAD training that is taking place this week and the installation of NCIC software on one of the dispatching terminals.
She also said that a $5,000 computer was destroyed when a generator was hooked up to the system during the move to the new quarters a few weeks ago. She said computer technicians and generator personnel had assured 911 employees that the computer would not be harmed. However, now each is blaming the other for the outage. Neugent said if the matter couldn't be resolved it would be turned over to county attorney Bruce Wilson to pursue.
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