Linn County E-911 board OKs November vote on phone tax hike

Linn County voters will be asked in November to raise their landline telephone bills by up to $9 a year to help pay for expensive changes to the county's public-safety radio system.

“For the local jurisdictions to pick up the cost of changing the equipment out, it would be overwhelming,” said Shirley Hoppe of Robins, a member of the Linn County E-911 Service Board's executive board.

Radio operators nationwide face a Jan. 1, 2013 deadline to meet the Federal Communications Commission's “narrowcasting” standard to free space on the radio spectrum accommodate the continued boom in cell phones and other wireless devices. A consultant will report to the county in December, but preliminary estimates of the cost to the county's police, fire, and medical services are well in excess of $10 million.

Representatives of those services gave unanimous approval to a ballot question seeking to raise the county's monthly surcharge on landlines to up to $1 from its current 25 cents. That would boost E-911 revenues to about $1.1 million a year from its current $260,000.

The fund also receives the county's share of a 65-cent monthly tax on cell phones collected and distributed by the state. The county received $140,000 from the state last year.

Board members realize they'll need an aggressive campaign to sell the higher surcharge to a skeptical public.

“We really need you guys to help us,” Hiawatha Fire Chief Mike Nesslage told the representatives. “It goes to equipment. It's not paying salaries, it's not building buildings.”

If approved, it would be the first increase in the county surcharge since it was adopted in 1991. Linn County's is the smallest monthly charge in the state.

“We would be irresponsible if we didn't come before the board tonight” seeking the increase, said Linn County Sheriff ‘s Capt. Dave Knott. “This is not a question of ‘Can we do this?' Everybody's had plenty of notice” of the pending changes.

Without the higher surcharge, the E-911 fund will be operating at a deficit in two years, even without the cost of the FCC-mandated changes, said county Supervisor Jim Houser, the board's chairman.

“If we don't do anything today and do business as usual, we're going to go into a deficit,” Houser said.