Emergency phone system likely target of E911 budget cuts

Linn County's Code Red emergency notification system appears the first casualty of voters' rejection of an increase in the tax used to maintain it. More cuts are on the way. 'If it looks like we're not going to be able to fund it in the future, why do it next year?' said Mike Goldberg, director of the Linn County Emergency Management Agency.

Goldberg, also a member of the county E911 executive board, spoke at the board's first meeting since Nov. 2, when voters rejected its request to boost the county's monthly fee on landline phones from 25 cents to $1. The fund, which covers the cost of police, fire, and ambulance communications in the county, is seeing decreased revenues as consumers move from landlines to cell phones.

The county pays about $50,000 a year for Code Red, which allows officials to dial phones in specific areas to pass on public-safety announcements. The system was last used to issue evacuation orders to Palo and Cedar Rapids neighborhoods during the June 2008 flood.

'It did contact some people,' Goldberg said.

'But you're lucky if you get a 60-percent saturation on multiple (calls).' E911 also receives funding from the state's 65-cent monthly tax on cell phones. County Budget Director Dawn Jindrich said the state allocates the tax based on each county's geographical area, with Linn County receiving about $158,000 a year. The county's cell phone users generate well over $1 million, Jindrich estimated.

Agencies face a Jan.

1, 2013, deadline to up­grade radio systems to allow more bandwidth for wireless users, a project County Supervisor Jim Houser, also the E911 board chairman, estimates could cost up to $15 million. Given that requirement, along with plans to upgrade rural fire and rescue services' pagers and routine maintenance costs, further cuts are likely. 'If people don't want to pay for anything, they're not going to get anything,' said Cedar Rapids City Councilmember Chuck Wieneke, also an E911 board member.

'Let's start putting it out there, as they lose things.'