(Spirit Lake)– The Dickinson county E911 Commission is drawing attention to a little known measure that will appear on November 2nd General Election ballot.
Mike Ehret, Dickinson County Emergency Management Coordinator, says if approved, the measure would increase a surcharge from 75 cents per month per land line phone currently to $1.00.
Ehret says this would be the first time the surcharge has been adjusted since it was implemented some 20 years ago. He says the one dollar charge per land line is the maximum allowed under state law.
Proceeds from the surcharge are used to purchase equipment for the 911 system in the county’s Communications Center.
Ehret says a decline in the number of land lines with more people switching to cell phones means the county is seeing a corresponding drop in the surcharge.
A 65 cent per month surcharge for cell phones will remain in effect. The cell phone surcharge can only be set by the state legislature. The money is distributed to the counties through a formula based on call volume and the county’s geographic size. Ehret feels the latter part of the formula needs to be changed. Because of that formula, Ehret says Dickinson county receives a smaller amount of the revenue, even though it’s call volume is higher than those counties that are larger in size.
