News Archives
MARC Speaks Out at Legislative Day
September 17, 2007
Keith Faddis, MARC public safety program director, presented testimony concerning Missouri’s 9-1-1 funding issue at a legislative day in St. Joseph, Mo., September 13. Members of the Missouri House of Representative’s Interim Committee to Evaluate the 9-1-1 System have been holding hearings in Jefferson City and around the state to gather concerns about the state’s 9-1-1 system. Marlene Nagel, director of community development, presented full testimony on behalf of MARC to the committee in Jefferson City in August.
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Also speaking before the committee in St. Joseph was Yucel Ors, director of legislative affairs for the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International's office of government affairs. Ors was in the Kansas City area presenting a professional development luncheon for MARC region public safety managers and supervisors. He provided the House committee a national perspective on the 9-1-1 funding issue and gave insight into some of the challenges other states are facing in providing for their systems.
Missouri is the only state in the nation that currently does not have a way to collect funds from cell phone users for 9-1-1 service. Twice Missouri voters have rejected a tax on cell phones to fund 9-1-1. This has become a serious situation as cell phone usage has greatly increased and the number of wireline users has declined. However, fees to support 9-1-1 service are only collected from wireline phones in Missouri. This not only means that current levels of service are difficult to maintain on a shrinking revenue stream, but also that new, necessary technologies that assist in locating cellular and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) callers are unaffordable.