LOCKPORT, N.Y. – The FCC says New York State is missing out on federal funding available to help pay for 911 system upgrades because the state doesn’t use enough of the 911 surcharge it collects from consumers’ phone bills for local public safety costs.
According to the FCC’s 2017 report, New York collected approximately $185,344,986 from the Public Safety Surcharge in 2016, but only awarded $10 million to counties specifically for “PSAPs,” or public safety answering points where dispatcher take 911 calls.
Niagara County Sheriff Jim Votour, whose county is already underserved by broadband internet access, says his 911 center struggles to keep up with technology.
"You still can't text to 911 in this county. And a lot of people don't know that, especially our 18 and 19-year-olds,” Votour said. “They believe they can text to 911, and we are not equipped to be able to handle that yet.”
Meanwhile, the federal funding that other states are eligible for is helping their first responders upgrade to a type of emergency response dubbed “Next Gen 911.”
The money you pay at the bottom of your phone bill should be helping local Sheriffs like Votour make the upgrade, which would use video and photo from an emergency scene to improve the response at PSAPs.
"In the last five years, our citizens that have a wireless device have paid $10.2 million in fees; $2.2 million of those fees have returned to Niagara County to help us with our PSAP center,” Votour said. “That just scratches the surface to get into ‘Next Gen 911.’”
FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly, who visited with Votour and Congressman Chris Collins on Friday, calls New York State a diverter for taking advantage of the way state law is written to use a lot of that money for non-public-safety uses.
Congressman Collins says a truth in advertising issue may be at hand since a consumer assumes their money is going to 911.
"You've got to disclose in an open way to the billpayer, where's the money going? That is something we can do to put significant pressure back on to New York State,” Collins said.
Commissioner O’Rielly says letters have been sent to all the Governors who have not complied but that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office has not responded. He said the FCC is in talks with members of Congress to discuss if federal legislation could help spur change.
Channel 2 reached out to the Governor’s office to ask about how 911 surcharge money is used, and we received a response from the Division of the Budget instead.
Spokesman Morris Peters sent the following statement.
“New York’s cellular surcharge is used to upgrade public safety communication systems and support emergency services operations, statewide, including $29 million worth of interoperable communications grants for Western New York. In the event of an emergency, every second counts and this measure provides critical funding to help first responders, at all levels of government, communicate faster and respond sooner.”
Peters also write that state law allows 41.7 percent of the surcharge revenue to be diverted to the state’s General Fund because, ‘the Public Safety Communications Surcharge is one of many sources supporting General Fund spending in this area.”
You can see how much your county has received here.