News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
As Pickett County begins work toward building its own E-911 center, it can learn some lessons from Van Buren County.
The week’s news was dominated by the finding of irregularities inside the Overton/Pickett E911 District. Those issues have led Pickett County Executive Richard Daniel to call for his county to pull out of the 16-year-old partnership.
Overton and Pickett County came together in 2002 because both 911 centers struggled to fund the expensive operations. As the smallest county in the state, state officials said Pickett County will be challenged to pay for 911 emergency service on its own.
Van Buren County officials understand. Van Buren County is the second smallest county in the state.
Van Buren County E-911 board member Will Maxwell said a small county has to provide the same kind of service with fewer dollars coming in.
“If you think about it on a scale, we have to provide the same amount of services as any place across the state,” Maxwell said. “We have to have someone there to answer the phone as well as dispatch all emergency services.”
Every landline and cell phone in the state pays an E-911 fee. About 80 percent of that fee goes to the individual counties. Maxwell said that’s a smaller pot of money when you only have five thousand citizens.
For example, if every Pickett County resident has a phone, the county would receive just over $4,700 per month in state funding or approximately $56,582 annually.
Maxwell said constantly changing equipment also comes into play.
“That equipment is very expensive. Right now we are looking at a new 911 controller that’s being mandated by the state,” Maxwell said. “That’s in the neighborhood of $100,000 and $150,000.”
Van Buren County has an interlocal agreement with Spencer and the county where each entity provides funding for 911 dispatching services.
Right now, Van Buren County is requesting both entities to up their funding so it doesn’t face the risk of having to urn back dispatch services to both the city and county.
If that happened, E-911 would simply operate the 911 equipment.
