City takes first step to claim its share of county-enacted 911 fee

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Thursday, Aug. 11, 2016, 2 p.m. — Without discussion, the Bardstown City Council held first reading of changes to an old ordinance that addressed 911 service fees.

The ordinance change was designed to allow the City of Bardstown to claim its share of the 911 fee that Nelson Fiscal Court moved off landline telephone bills and onto the property tax bills.

The 911 fee is $2 per month, or $24 a year. Fiscal court gave final approve of placing the fee on tax bills in June.

The reason fiscal court took that action was an effort to improve funding for the dispatch center. As the number of landlines has dwindled over the past few years, so have the 911 fees generated by those landlines.

The 911 fees have never covered all of the costs of operating the dispatch center.

According to the current 911 agreement between the city and county, the two governments share the dispatch costs not are above and beyond the amount received in 911 fees. The additional costs are shared in a 60/40 split, with the county paying 60 percent of those costs.

But the 911 agreement is currently being renegotiated, and the latest sticking point in those negotiations center around the city’s proposed changes to its level of financial participation.

Rather than continue to pay a 40 percent share of the costs — estimated to be $144,020 for this fiscal year — the city has proposed paying a fixed fee of $22,800.

That figure is based on the Kentucky State Police’s March 2016 estimate to perform dispatching for the city — $157,200 — minus city’s share of the $24 annual 911 fee. As written, the draft agreement would mean county government would need to pick up a significantly larger share of dispatch costs.

Once the 911 ordinance becomes law, it will be the mechanism by which the city will establishes a claim on the annual 911 fees.

Negotiations regarding the 911 agreement are continuing.

Judge Executive Dean Watts said he considers the 911 fee a countywide fee for the support of a countywide dispatch service.

“The sheriff will collect (the fees) and we will use the funds to operate the services that serve all county residents,” he said.

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