Carbon County officials say that if legislators allow a phone fee to end in January, the inaction could be devastating to the 911 communication centers across the state.

On Thursday, the board of commissioners adopted a resolution urging the Pennsylvania General Assembly to reauthorize Chapter 53 of Title 35 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statues with 911 surcharge increases to support the 911 system in all counties. The current 911 funding fee is slated to sunset on Jan. 31, 2024.

Currently, a $1.65 per line fee is collected on all phones and the money is utilized by county 911 centers to maintain an up-to-date communications center.

However, Gary Williams, 911 director, said that this fee will end if state legislators do not act.

Carbon County receives approximately $1.5 million from these fees collected, which is then used as part of the center’s $2.3 million budget.

“Technology is very expensive,” Williams said. “Equipment is expensive. Everything is expensive. We just need more money. I get around $1.5 million from those phones. If that goes away, unfortunately, for the commissioners here, the taxpayers will have to pay what I spend up there.”

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein, who has been vocal about the need to continue this fee to help emergency responders, again stressed that the 911 system is a crucial part of the county, one that cannot just be left to limp along.

Carbon County has been continuing to upgrade systems, most recently integrating a texting platform that allows callers to text 911 when they have no service or cannot speak on the phone. This was used during a recent outage that affected nearly two dozen counties’ 911 systems.

“We need the communications,” Nothstein said. “I certainly think we can improve on our system but without this additional funding, we can’t afford to do it. Hopefully they (legislators) will get it passed before the end of this session because as we all know, they’re just going back this month and have very few days to do it. If they go on break before the end of the years and it’s not passed, we know it’s not going to happen.”

Nothstein added that if no action is taken, it would mean approximately $100,000 less a month for Carbon County 911.

“We’re pushing it. Other counties are pushing it,” he said.

Commissioner Rocky Ahner said that based on the current call volume at the 911 center, which as of Sept. 14, stood at 50,581 calls, you can see just how busy the dispatchers are for the county.

“You know it’s going to be devastating,” Ahner said.

Williams said that County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania have been asking for the state to raise the fee to $2.30 with an annual increase due to inflation, however, the state is proposing only an increase to $1.97.

“The bottom line here is the PA 911 system has been underfunded since the inception of the fee,” Williams wrote in a report on the matter.

If the fee is increased to a level that counties feel would work, it would provide better opportunities to hire staff, upgrade and add necessary equipment for better communications with emergency services and keep 911 communication centers operating in the most efficient ways possible.

Without the funding, counties would be forced to implement a tax increase to make up for the money lost.

“The story we are getting from a lot of our legislators is they see it as a tax increase and not a surcharge, but what they are doing, and I told our legislators to their faces that when you vote ‘no’ to pass something like this, then you’re voting for me to raise the taxes,” Nothstein said. “We have to provide that service.

“What would the constituents do if nobody was there to take the call?”