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HomeMy WebLinkAbout06-22-1998 Meeting I I I PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE COMMITTEE ROOM - June 22, 1998 3:30 P.M. PRESENT: Kuhlke, Vice Chairman; Shepard, Mays, members; R. Oliver, Administrator; J. Wall, Legal Counsel; R. Few, Fire Chief. ABSENT: Larry E. Sconyers, Mayor; F. Handy, Chairman. ALSO PRESENT : Spirit . T. Powell, Augusta Chronicle; S. Edison, Metro -. The Clerk: We have one addendum item: A request to approve a Resolution LffiPosing a wireless enhanced 911 charge on wireless telecommunications connections within Richmond County, Georgia. MR. SHEPARD: I move it be added. MR. MAYS: Second. Motion carried unanimously. A request to approve the purchase of protective clothing for the Fire Department. Chief Few: In our department we have two or three different types of gear that we had in the department at one time. This will put all our firefighters in the same type of protective gear that is a higher level of protective gear than we had in the past. And this is a budgeted item. We will be ordering a little more gear each year because gear breaks down. This is the best bid, one company did not meet specifications. MR. SHEPARD: I move this be approved. I understand it's in budget. MR. MAYS: Second. Motion carried unanimously. Mr. Oliver: I would like to make mention of one other thing that relates to Chief Few. As you recall there was an article regarding ambulance service in the paper and there was a lot of tugging and pulling going around and apparently someone has persuade the State that when University Hospital changed their ambulance it was not done properly. So as a result of that, Region 6 has indicated that they are going to go through a process to designate that license and in that regard they are going to set up I a committee. They called last Thursday morning, June 18 and asked for a representative of Augusta-Richmond County. Since I couldn't get in touch with anyone, my recommendation to the Mayor and Commission is that since Chief Few is on that Committee anyway, that he should be our represenGative to the subcommittee to resolve this issue. Mr. Kuhlke: Seems appropriate to me. Mr. Shepard: Me to. A request to approve a Resolution imposing a wireless enhanced 911 charge on wireless telecommunications connections within Richmond County, Georgia. Mr. Wall: There are certain steps that you have to go through in order to implement the 911 charge on cellular phones. First, you have to have a public hearing and that has been advertised and will be held Wednesday, July 1 at 10: 00, the same day the law becomes effective. Second, you have to adopt a resolution. Three, you have to wait 120 days before you can implement the charge. And we are recommending that the charge go into affect December 1, which is more than 120 days. The law requires that thirty cent out of each dollar be set aside in a reserve fund for installing and upgrading the equipment for wireless 911 services. Initially, the cellular carriers have to have the capacity of when you call from a cellular phone the tower will be located. So on the 911 screen they will know where which tower this cellular phone connected to. There are some FCC orders that Gary Hewett and Randy Cantu are looking at in so far as future requirements are concerned. My understanding is that by some date in 2001 that actually they have to have the ability to locate the car or the cellular phone on the GIS so that' you will know exactly where the call is coming from. So that reserve account is set up in order to make those improvements. We have met with the Sheriff's Department and IT and I am told and advised that the current software is in place and 911 has the ability to read that information. We have notified the cellular. carriers that in the event they don't already have the ability to transmit the necessary coding information to identify the tower they have to do that. We sent that letter out about a month ago. The other thing that we requested and we don't have, is an estimate of the number of cellular users with addresses in Richmond County. Mr. Oliver: hundred thousand, us. But until we We have an estimate based between two and three based on some general perimeters that ACCG gave have that data we won't have a firm estimate. Mr. Kuhlke: When we met with the Delegation last year, wasn't this one of the things that we aSKed them to look into? I I I I I Mr. Oliver: That's true. What we were doing at that time is, this was proposed by both GMA and ACCG as State wide legislation, we were asking them to support it. At that p~rticular point this legislation appeared to be somewhat up in the air as to whether it was going to pass, but it successfully passed. Mr. address. pay. Do Shepard: The charge goes to the connecting units billing So if the billing address is in Richmond County, they they pay based on each account or the number of phones? Mr. Wall: If you have one phone number you pay $1.00 per month per billing account. MR. SHEPARD: I move we approve this Resolution, Mr. Chairman. .' Mr. Wall: Seventy cents will go into the 911 Fund to cover all expenses. Mr. Oliver: According to the agenda item, we are subsidizing $350,000 out of the General Fund into the 911 Fund because it's operating at a deficit. Mr. Todd: Did the Capital Outlay put us into the deficit situation or is this an operational deficit situation? Mr. Oliver: I can pullout the budget and analyze it, I don't want to call off the top of my head. Mr. Todd: I think that's important and I think that the other important issue is that by law we're supposed to have a 911 Committee and the Sheriff is supposed to be the chairman of that committee. One problem I have is that we don't have a functioning committee and certainly if we did we could have someone lOOK at the operational situation. I have a problem proceeding without the Committee in place. Mr. Wall: The Committee exist and the committee is to design rules and regulations for the operation of the 911 system. Mr. Oliver: I think that the Mayor and Commission will need to take an active role in the Committee because of the structure and the individuals involved. Mr. Todd: I think that if we are going to charge people a 911 fee and if we're going to collect them, then we should do what the law says do as far as the committees, etc. and the Committee should be functional and we should demand reports from the Committee. Mr. Mays: My question is to follow up on what the chief was saying and it gives us the opportunity to deal with some things out of 911 money that probably should be paid out of 911 money. Do we need something else to tie this Committee to function with this resolution or tie us to function with this resolution to make sure that's done. Other than the fact of us collecting it, but then it may get spent in the same manner that it's been spent before? I I want to second it and go on but I don't want it to continue to function like it is and then we have stuff that needs to be paid out of 911 money that maybe is not being paid out of 911. If we are going to move on with collecting some more money then we should tie all that up together or we should just leave this where it is. Mr. Wall: My suggestion as to dealing with that issue is that as the budget is being developed, you will h~ve from the Sheriff's Department and from the Fire Department the dispatchers be in there, the expenses from not only the Sheriff's Department but also from the Fire Department and that you all designate how you want the money spent. Mr. Kuhlke: Do we not as a Commission, have from a financial standpoint, we have the oversight as far as the budget goes? Mr. Oliver: But it's the same as the Sheriff's Department. In other words, if the Sheriff ask for (x) amount of dollars you could give him $2 million less. Mr. Kuhlke: If this is implemented, I agree with what willie and Moses are saying, is if we had to come out of the General Fund this year $300,000 to make 911 worK, what's the anticipated income off the cell phones? Mr. Oliver: Between $200,000 and $300,000. But we won't have a good number until we get those numbers from the cellular phone company. I Mr. Kuhlke: But, what I'm saying is, we should be able to figure out a way to get to a point where it's neutral to everybody. Mr. Oliver: But there are some potentially philosophical issues that are going to have to be addressed such as; do you want your dispatchers to be able to dispatch both police and fire? And there will be some other issues that will be widely debated. Then it will come down to an issue of control. Mr. Kuhlke: Who is on the 911 Committee from the Commission? Mr. Wall: Nobody from the Commission is on the Committee. Mr. Oliver: I think that there should be a Commission representative. I'm on the Committee, the Fire Chief, Pam Tucker, the Sheriff Department, someone from University Hospital, Hephzibah and Blythe. It's going to be resolved in a political arena it's not going to be resolved in a technical arena. Mr. Mays: If that's the case, in all fairness, to you Randy I and to Steve coming on and I know that this is an opportunity that we need to take advantage of at the proper time of being able to get this money so that we aren't dealing with it in the General I I I Fund money. Maybe since we have a resolution that is prepared and the folK concerned about it, which all of us are, but I mean in that functioning capacity if it's going to be decided in that arena, maybe not dealing w~th it might be the best thing to do and give them some time to think about it and then when they get into a room together, they can have their minds made up about what that fight is going to be about. Because I think when we go out and we start charging and then we have to deal with the control problem. Let them work out how it will be controlled and then we go ahead on and deal with applying for the money. - Mr. Oliver: We have a dead line of (120) one hundred twenty days from the date that this is done. So consequently, it takes a long period of time. In the budgetary process, if you wanted you / could take the $100,000 or $200,000 you could say we're going to pay for the dispatchers for the Fire Department and indicate to the Sheriff that he is going to have to balance his portion of it. So I think it gives you more leverage and time wise it is an issue to us financially and budgetarily because we definitely need to get it in place to support next years budget. Mr. Kuhlke: I believe that the change in the ordinance is for us to approve this budget at the end of December. Mr. Mays: Since none of us are on that Committee, I'm not going to vote against it, I'm not going to vote for it. I'm not going to second it. I think that when we're talking about public safety you're talking 911, we have some stuff that is being paid and some that is not being paid, I'm already hearing this is going to be worked out in a political forum and not in anything else. Then, I'm ready to just sit and let the politics of it work out in a fairness schedule and then maybe at that point, we go ahead and apply for it. But, I think that if you go ahead and folk know it's a pot and you don't change the rules on how it's going to be divided up, then it may just be the same way it is now. And we'll be sitting around in a room without a vote on it, trying to figure out how we can get some money from over there to put it where you need to put it. I think that group needs to meet and decide how they will deal with it and then come back and say, this is how we will spend it and we plan to function and then we go ahead with what we have to do. Mr. Oliver: The Mayor and Commission have the ultimate say on the whole thing. What you could do is say, as part of the budgetary process we're going to put the dispatchers from the Fire Department in the 911 Center and we expect that budget to be balanced, period. The only thing that is potentially delaying this for any period of time does is it makes it so that we don't have that revenue to cover that in any way. Mr. Kuhlke: Mr. Mays, what if Mr. Shepard amended his motion to basically incorporate what Mr. Oliver just said. That we are approving this going back to the Commission but we are asking the Administrator to come back to us with a process by which we would then administer these additional funds. Mr. Mays: I can live with that. But I think that Committee I needs to function by some different rules. This cannot keep going on like it has been. If you don't stop it somewhere and make folk abide by some set of rules, then they'll Keep collecting and Keep spending and then everybody else will have to keep begging. Mr. Oliver: Why don't I do this, put it in the motion, and direct in next years budgetary process Fire Department dispatch personnel be included in the 911 budget, and the 911 budget be balanced. Mr. Wall: You're talking about the 911 budget being balanced out of the 911 fees, I don't know whether you want to take that step, because what you're doing is sacrificing the efficiency of the 911 service in the name of economy. That bothers me. Mr. Shepard: Seems to me the longer we delay acting with this bill, the more the 911 deficit is going to run up. Mr. Mays: I can support us dealing with that. But I want us to get somewhere in there to a point that I don't think is fair, if we're going to, I don't think we'll let anybody go lacking. But we did, we put the burden of proof in one budget and it wasn't balanced out another budget. You make one somebody prove their case when you have a pot of money sitting over here that maybe one department has not had the opportunity to dip in to deal with it's fair share and the other one gets whatever it wants out of it. I think over all we are supporting everything that's there. If there is going to be some kind of defici, I think we will step up to the plate and answer it, but I don't think that we should be answering it to the tune of where one goes in and is getting it totally or a large percentage out of general and not dealing with it out of 911. I Mr. Todd: Mr. Wall, the law dealing with the Committee, does it place the chairman of the committee as the Sheriff? To my recollection it does. What I would like to see is that Committee function. We've done several hundred thousand dollars if not millions in capital outlay for 9ll. They should be more efficient and operate less costly. What I'm seeing is that they're operating less efficient and more costly. What I would like to see is that Committee meet and I want to see a report from that Committee and some recommendations on how we can operate more cost efficient. Chief Few: Mr. Chairman, when I read that rule it didn't say who was in charge of it, it just said that members of the Public Safety Committee would be made up of the Fire Department, the Fire Chief, the Sheriff and other members. The Fire Department budget will not support another hit like they went through when I first I got here. They had to purchase equipment out of the fire tax budget for about $360,000 because we were actually being dispatched two different ways because the city and county had just I I I consolidated which was a dangerous situation. I have been in conversation with the Sheriff and he has assured me that he really didn't know that our dispatchers were not getting paid out of the 911 fund. In most cities 911.funds are for fire. and emergency fund services. It does not designate law enforcement nor fire services, it's all together when you pay that money it's for public safety. MR. SHEPARD: I move to approve and that all generated 911 funds be handled through the budgetary process and all emergency employees at 911 be paid out of these funds. MR. KOHLKE: Second. Motion fails 2-1 with Mr. Mays abstaining. With no further business to discuss the meeting was adjourned. Lena J. Bonner Clerk of Commission /bb .-