County judge updates dispatch board on possible 911 funding mechanisms

The E-911 Dispatch Board met Tuesday afternoon. From left, Bloomfield Police Chief Scott Dennis, Nelson County Sheriff Ed Mattingly, New Haven Fire Chief Fred DeWitt, EMS Director Joe Prewitt, Dispatch Director Debbie Carter, and Bardstown Fire Chief Randy Walker.

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Tuesday, March 29, 2016 — The question of how to fund the county’s E-911 Dispatch Center was discussed Tuesday afternoon at the E-911 Dispatch Board meeting.

Nelson County Judge-Executive Dean Watts updated the board on the research he has done to date on ways to collect the 911 fees that will be fair to all county residents.

The fee is collected on each landline telephone. Nelson Fiscal Court has discussed raising the fee from $1.71 to $2 per month; how the fee would be collected is still undetermined.

Salt River Electric has agreed to add the fee to electric bills for its Nelson County customers, Watts said. However, Kentucky Utilities has indicated it is unwilling to collect the 911 fee if asked to do so.

KU has 3,300 customers in Nelson County, and if the county were to depend on utility bills for the fee, it would be necessary to separately bill residents served by KU.

Watts said he’s also checked into adding the fee to water bills, but LaRue County and Marion County — which serve about 1,600 customers — have said they would not add the fee to their bills.

Adding the fee to property tax bills is possible, but not the fairest way to do so, he said because it doesn’t collect the tax from those who rent. Twenty-five percent of county residents rent, he said.

BUDGET APPROVED. The dispatch board approved is 2016-17 budget, which will now be forwarded to Nelson Fiscal Court and the Bardstown City Council for their review.

The new budget includes $80,000 for additional technical equipment beyond the $133,375 in grant money budgeted to be spent this fiscal year. The budget also includes an increase of $35,000 for contract services, which will includes support for the new computer-aided dispatch software and accounting services by Hibbs & Associates.

The 2016-17 budget total is approximately $26,000 less than last year’s budget due largely to cost-cutting measures the board has taken, including not replacing two full-time employees, reducing staffing in the evening hours and dropping several telephone lines.

In other business, the board:

— approved signing up with Humana as health insurance provider for dispatch employees.
— heard from a Holy Cross resident concerned that 911 addressing won’t properly locate his home.
— received an update from Dispatch Director Debbie Carter on the new computer-aided dispatch software that will be in place by the end of May.

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