A Kentucky Senator told the General Assembly that the state needs to find a new source of funding for the 911 emergency operation centers.
Kenton County Republican legislator Christian McDaniel said the statewide taxes placed on traditional landline owners are significantly higher than those on mobile phone users, despite the fact that landline use has steadily deceased. McDaniel said the fees need to be updated to meet the changes in technology.
“As the landlines continue to dwindle in terms of the usage, the fees are just not keeping up with the cost of doing business," said McDaniel.
McDaniel said the state can't keep using the same 911 service rates as if it was still 1998.
"As you can imagine, back when everybody had a landline, it was good way to allocate the fees on it, but at this point it’s just not. Up here, we were paying $4.25 a month and still running several hundred thousand dollars in the hole for the funding of our 911 services.”
McDaniel said fees for mobile services have remained low at 70 cents a month for the last 15 years.
McDaniel said a more equitable funding system needs to be instated to increase the potential funding for 911 centers as well as shift the heavy burden off of landline users.
