City of Gadsden seeks share of state 911 funding
The City of Gadsden wants what it views as its share of state money allocated to local 911 services. Gadsden leaders say they need the money to help fund the maintenance of city-owned radio towers, which are vital to the mission of emergency communication.
The Etowah County Emergency Communication District, which for more than three decades has received all that funding, says that giving Gadsden a share of that money would violate state law and the district has countered with a proposal it says would alleviate that financial burden from the city.
The result is strife that has Mayor Craig Ford furious about what he describes as “taxation without representation,” and the city considering launching its own emergency communications district.
A resolution to do just that was presented at Tuesday's City Council work session, without any discussion of its contents. That means the measure would be put to a council vote on Feb. 20, unless a resolution to the stalemate is reached before then.
Brett Johnson, Ford's chief of staff, said Tuesday in a text message that the proposed Gadsden Emergency Communications District would have seven board members who are city residents, and the members would be knowledgeable in emergency communications, emergency management and first responder services.
The back story: At one time, all 911 calls in Etowah County went to Gadsden's dispatch center. However, county residents in 1986 voted to establish the countywide communications district, to be funded by a 5% fee for phone service. That district separated from Gadsden in 1992, and is one of 85 in Alabama.
It receives funding from the State 911 Board, which comes from a $1.86 monthly fee on phone bills in the state and a percentage assessed on prepaid phone service at the point of sale.
At present, the county district gets $199,586.22 each month from the state, according to the State 911 Board's website, which equates to $2.388 million annually and is the 10th highest total among Alabama's districts.
Gadsden officials during the Jan. 30 work session asked the council to authorize Ford to negotiate for the city on the issue. It did so following a unanimous consent vote for immediate consideration, and much discussion, in the regular council meeting.
John Moore, director of economic development and governmental affairs, said the city wants one-third of the funds the county district currently gets from the state, based on population, to help recoup costs that Ford later elaborated on in the regular meeting.
Ford said the Bellevue Tower, owned by the city, needs $500,000 in urgent repairs, which are not budgeted and would have to be drawn from Gadsden's undesignated fund balance.
He said the city spends $800,000 to $900,000 a year on maintaining that tower, plus the Rock Spring Tower it leases; is “paying for all the services throughout the county,” as a majority of radio signals between the county's first responders “bounce off our towers.” He also said Gadsden has no representation on the county district's board.
Ford also expressed ire that the board also had asked Gadsden to start paying a $10 per radio monthly user fee, even though those radios are owned by the city and operate on towers owned and maintained by the city. He said the city also faced an expense of $50,000 to $75,000 in moving the communications base to the new City Hall in the Regions Bank building by this fall.
The mayor said he was expecting a response from the county district to the city's request for funding and its concerns — which arrived on Feb. 8 in a letter from Shane Ellison, Etowah County's chief administrative officer and chairman of the district's board, which held a called meeting that day.
Ellison in his letter described the board as “concerned” over the scope of the repairs needed for the Bellevue Tower and the amount the city is spending on tower maintenance.
He said the board, seeking to “provide the best possible communication network” for law enforcement agencies, fire departments and public safety personnel in both Gadsden and the county as a whole, is willing to lease the Bellevue Tower from the city for $1 a year, “for a term of the city's choosing,” with a guarantee that city departments could use the tower at no cost during the lease.
Ellison said the board also would reimburse the city $12,500 annually to cover its lease payment to Crown Castle, a wireless communication infrastructure provider, for space on the Rock Springs Tower.
And to facilitate the relocation of City Hall, the board would install a direct connection between the Etowah County Sheriff's Office and the 911 building on airport road, “eliminating any current or future costs to the city.”
Ellison said the board also is interested in discussing a merger of dispatch services, Gadsden's and its own, which it asserts “would decrease response time, further ensuring the improved safety of the public” and “may also yield long-term savings to the (city),” reducing pressure on both its budget and 911's operating costs, “since 911 pays for Gadsden's dispatch equipment.”
He said the board suggests that a six-member committee — made up of the board chairman, the chairman of the City Council's Public Safety Committee, Gadsden's fire chief, the sheriff or his designee, the 911 dispatch supervisor (or designee) and the Gadsden dispatch supervisor (or the mayor's designee) — look at that idea.
While it isn't the “transfer of funds” that the city requested, Ellison said it would be a “mutually beneficial solution” that would reduce costs to the city's benefit, ensure continued radio usage at no cost to the city, comply with an existing agreement with the city that states that it will receive no funds “for call takers or any other use,” comply with Alabama law that requires that state funds “be appropriated to a single public safety answering point” and allow the board to make the needed repairs to the Bellevue Tower.
He called it a “major commitment” that would “ensure that the safety of both the general public and of all first responders is not sacrificed to meet Gadsden's budgetary constraints.”
Ford fired back on Feb. 9 with an angry letter telling the board “to identify a new location for your equipment immediately” because Gadsden “no longer wishes to subsidize the further enrichment of your organization, which is charging Etowah County's smallest municipalities and volunteer fire departments outrageous radio usage fees while Etowah County 911 refuses to compensate the City of Gadsden for use of its towers, infrastructure, and equipment.”
He claimed the board earns more than $3 million in revenue annually and has more than $4 million in surplus funds, but collects all the user fees paid by Gadsden's residents and business, while the city's police, fire and safety communications departments “carry 100% of the burden for receiving 911 calls for service, dispatch operations, and first-response services to residents and businesses” in the city, which he said amounts to them being “double taxed.”
Ford accused the board of “draining resources from cities like Gadsden” for more than three decades, and said the city “receives zero benefit” from the district “while it provides all of the infrastructure necessary for Etowah County 911 to exist.”
He also disputed the contention that a single public safety answering point is required by law, noting that with 85 districts in the state's 67 counties, there have to be multiples. He cited DeKalb County, where a county communication district and a municipal one for Fort Payne both receive state funding, as well as Alabama Code 11-98-4, which indicates that an emergency communication district's board “has the authority to 'enter into contracts or agreements with public or private safety agencies for dispatch services' and 'to make grants to municipalities for dispatching equipment and services.' ”
The mayor wrote, “That seems like clear legal authorization for Etowah County 911 to contract and grant funding to the city for use of our infrastructure (equipment) and for the relief of the burden of serving our 34,000 residents, 4,000 businesses and 70,000+ daily visitors.”
Ford called the board's proposal “flippant” and proof that “it's all about the money” for the district, as opposed to “efficient collection and expense of taxpayer dollars.”
Johnson said talks with the county district's board continue in hopes of a “reasonable solution,” but if that doesn't happen, a plan is in place to go after Gadsden's share of the funds its residents and business pay for 911 service to cover the cost of a city district.
Ellison, responding to a text after Tuesday's council meeting, had no comment other than “I still think we can work through this.”
On Wednesday, he provided a list of the board's members: besides him, they are Sheriff Jonathan Horton, County Engineer Robert Nail, Altoona Fire Chief Tim Crow, Hokes Bluff Mayor Scott Reeves, former Gadsden-Etowah Emergency Management Director Deborah Gaither and Juarus Rawls.
Gaither could nominally be considered a city representative, since the EMA is housed at City Hall (it had moved to the 911 headquarters, but shifted back to the city site, saving $7,000 a month in rent, according to Ford). However, Johnson noted on Wednesday that she was appointed “years ago by the County Commission,” and had chosen to remain on the board even though she retired as EMA director last year.
Her term as a board member expires in August, and Johnson said, “That should be an opportunity to appoint a replacement who is actively employed with the City of Gadsden dealing with emergency services. Even so, that person would be one of seven members on the county 911 board.”
Ellison said there was no provision in the board's rules to remove a member, and that he'd told Ford he would ask Gaither if she was willing to resign, but was told “not to worry about it.”
Ford in a statement released on Wednesday said, “"I want to be clear, my issue with 911 has nothing to do with the county or the County Commission. In fact, I think their constituents are being most hurt by the non-elected 911 board's radio charges to volunteer fire departments and smaller cities and towns when the radios they are charging for depend on Gadsden's equipment.
“I want the people of Gadsden and Etowah County to know, the cities and county are still working great together,” he said. “We can have disagreements with appointed boards, and still work together on dozens of other important matters. This is just one of those situations where the people are being double-taxed, and it just isn't right. So, I'm hopeful we can find an equitable solution. I can only control what Gadsden does, so we'll do what we need to do."
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Why Gadsden could form its own emergency communication district
