911 savings account becomes county-only
Garland County will no longer set aside funds to upgrade Hot Springs’ 911 call center or secondary centers in the county, County Judge Rick Davis said.
The $140,000 earmarked for city upgrades was released to the city last year, the county said. Those funds were part of the city’s population-based share of fees wireless providers collect for 911 service. The county had been putting a portion of the city’s share into a reserve fund to pay for upgrades at the city’s primary public safety answering point, or PSAP.
“We’re not taking any money out of the city’s one-third other than the related costs for phone bills to run their center,” Davis said, explaining that the county is no longer putting a portion of the city’s 911 allocation into the reserve account. “From this point
forward, we’re saving only for our (PSAP).”
Instead of the $155,000 annual allocation from the Emergency 911 Fund to the reserve account, the county will begin next year setting aside $55,000 of its 911 allocation to pay for upgrades at the county PSAP, Davis said. It receives more than $500,000 a year from the 65-cent charge assessed on cellphone bills. Per statute, cities with primary PSAPs are entitled to a population-based share of counties’ 911 allocation.
The county PSAP at the Garland County Sheriff’s Department and city PSAP inside the Hot Springs Police Department are the only primary facilities in the county, meaning they are capable of receiving 911 calls and dispatching emergency personnel out of the same location. Police Chief Jason Stachey said Thursday the city is in the process of using the $140,000 remitted to it by the county last year to upgrade the four dispatch positions in the city PSAP.
The $245,000 the Garland County Quorum Court appropriated from the reserve account Monday night upgraded the five dispatch positions in the county’s new PSAP and one each at Arkansas State Police Troop K and Hot Springs Village to AT&T Hosted Solutions, enabling emergency personnel to be dispatched using the internet protocol-based Next Generation 911 technology.
Davis said the county will not be able to afford upgrades for the Village and Troop K when the Garland County 911 Communications Center becomes operational. It was unveiled last month and could go live as early as later this year, the county said.
Davis said state police have reimbursed the county for the upgrade at Troop K, which serves a six-county area. According to the county finance department, Monday’s night appropriation left a $319,251 balance in the reserve account.
The county is paying the city’s share of AT&T’s monthly service charge from the city’s 911 allocation. Davis said the county is billed for the city, Troop K and Village PSAPs and is paying trunk phone line and internet-based system service charges during the transition to Next Generation technology.
“What’s really killing us is we’re paying two phone bills for each (PSAP), an old-style phone bill and a new-style phone bill,” he said. “We need to get switched over and reduce the phone bill. It’s about $16,000 a month now, but once it gets all connected it should go down.”
He said Saline County is using its 911 allocation to help with expenses at the Village PSAP, which serves Garland and Saline counties. Davis said a plan is in place to cease county support for the Village PSAP within five years and consolidate it with the county’s new communications center.
The county’s Emergency 911 Fund had an $895,539 balance as of earlier this week, the county finance department said. A
$469,574 transfer to the general fund was the largest expense budgeted for the 911 fund in
2018. The transfer supports operations at the county PSAP.
The 911 fund also supports the county’s department of emergency management, which assumed control of the county PSAP from the sheriff’s department earlier this year.