Public Safety Joint Communications and Emergency Management Services say they need at least $9 million to make system upgrades and hire more personnel.
Proposition 1, a county-wide sales tax, will be put before voters on Tuesday. If the tax goes into effect, shoppers in Boone County will pay 38 cents for every $100 spent starting Oct. 1. The money raised from this tax will go toward hiring more personnel, updating technology and building a new facility for the 911 center.
“The equipment we have now is at least 12 years old,” said Joe Piper, the acting Operations Manager at Boone County Joint Communications. “The company we bought it from does not even exist anymore. When something goes wrong, we have to buy the parts from eBay.”
Piper said a study conducted in 1993 by an independent consultant reported the 911 dispatch center was understaffed and needed more space to operate, a situation that continues to persist 20 years later.
“The study told us we needed 31 people,” Piper said. “That was back in 1993. We are in 2013 and
we only have 29 personnel.”
For a county of approximately 163,000 citizens, there is only one 911 call-taker working at any given time. According to national standards, PSJC needs a total of five call-takers working at all times.
PSJC has a high turnover rate due to the heavy workload on call-takers, who sometimes work 12-hour shifts.
National standards set by the National Fire Protection Association require 95 percent calls to be answered within 15 seconds. The standards say 99 percent of calls should be answered within 40 seconds.
“Due to the low staffing, an average of 130 calls per month go answered for longer than 60 seconds,” Piper said. “Only about 85 percent of our calls are answered within 15 seconds.”
Starting in 2010, a campaign has educated Missouri residents on the funding problems 911 call centers across the state face. Of the 114 counties in the state, 13 of them do not have 911 call centers.
The declining use of landlines is a major factor for the reduced funds for emergency management services. In Boone County, users pay a surcharge that only goes toward funding the telephone services of Joint Communications.
“Missouri is the only state in the country where mobile phone companies do not provide funding for 911 service,” Piper said.
If Proposition 1 passes, the County Commission will revoke the current landline tax.
Mark Flakne, president of Keep Columbia Free, said he does not support the 911 tax. Flakne said although Boone County officials have neglected PSJC and EMS, it is a bad idea to burden the taxpayers.
“If this sales tax gets approved, the tax everywhere will go up to 8 percent and above 8 percent in special tax districts, like downtown,” Flakne said.
Karen Taylor, the board president of Keep Columbia Safe, feels the sales tax is appropriate. Taylor said there is no price on safety and is in full support of the sales tax.
“It is not just the citizens of Columbia who will be paying this tax,” Taylor said. “Every visitor will also be contributing.”
According to the city manager’s budget for the financial year of 2013, PSJC gets about $2.5 million of funding annually. This year’s proposed budget for Emergency Management is a little more than $200,000. In 2012, the budget was a little more than $150,000.
Flakne attributes this distribution of resources as elected officials’ poor leadership
“The city should stop frivolous spending,” Flakne said. “They spent $3 million on marketing for the project GetAbout Columbia. The FastCAT bus service runs empty, burning fuel and taxpayers’ money. Compared to needs of PSJC and EMS, these should all rank lower on the city’s priority list.”