Budget, tax issues confound 911 situation
By JOHN STANG/The Daily Inter Lake
No solid financial figures, drastically different views on taxation, and timing.
These factors stymied the Kalispell City Council on Monday when it pondered a resolution to merge Flathead County's four emergency dispatch centers.
Ultimately, council members told City Manager Jim Patrick to decide whether an updated merger resolution should be taken to the council later for a vote. Monday's meeting was a workshop session at which no votes were legally allowed.
The politics and financing of a consolidated 911 center for Flathead County are complicated - although the county and three city governments passed a similar resolution a year ago to support the merger.
The county's current 911 center handles law enforcement calls for unincorporated Flathead County, plus all the fire and ambulance calls in the cities and rural areas.
Kalispell, Whitefish and Columbia Falls each have emergency dispatch centers for their own police.
The four centers have problems coordinating calls with the Flathead's hodgepodge of jurisdictions and different levels of services. The current dispatch equipment also is outdated.
All that has prompted the move to create a consolidated 911 center.
The 911 City-County Administrative Board is looking at two locations for a new center to be built from scratch:
n Next to the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation building in northwest Kalispell.
n On the Flathead Valley Community College campus.
One major hurdle is that no one has a good idea of how much it would cost to build and operate a consolidated 911 center.
A partial solution exists to that problem.
Flathead County has agreed to pay $700,000 of an $883,000 upgraded computer-aided dispatch system that is expected to be dramatically better than existing equipment.
And a statewide emergency network is expected to be set up this summer, including equipment being installed in Flathead County.
When the state-level equipment and the computer-aided dispatch system show up, the county plans to move its entire dispatch center to a Justice Center basement area under new management by the county's Office of Emergency Services.
That office will study personnel and equipment needs for at least a year to come up with reliable budget figures.
All that leads to a second major hurdle - how to set up a property tax levy for the consolidated 911 center that all four governments want.
County Commissioner Joe Brenneman told the Kalispell council Monday that: n Flathead County pays about $860,000 a year to operate the county's 911 center.
n Kalispell pays about $400,000 a year to operate its own dispatch center.
n Columbia Falls pays about $222,000 a year to operate its own center.
n Whitefish pays about $238,000 a year to operate is own center.
A complicating factor is that dispatchers also handle many non-dispatch duties - making it difficult to separate dispatch and non-dispatch finances for each center.
The 911 board - which includes elected officials from all four governments - wants the county and three cities to shift all of their existing emergency dispatch appropriations to a new consolidated 911 center.
Then the 911 board wants to take a referendum to county voters for a property tax levy that would cover the difference between the center's annual budget and the shifted funds.
Patrick on Monday and Columbia Falls City Manager Bill Shaw in a recent interview both supported a property tax levy to pay for all of a consolidated 911 center's operating expenses and construction debt service. They want the individual governments to have a choice in how to deal with their current emergency dispatch funds - shift them to other projects or use the money for property tax relief.
Whitefish City Manager Gary Marks has been out of town and was unavailable for an interview on this subject.
Shaw and Patrick argued that since city dwellers also are county residents, they already are paying for both the county 911 center and the dispatch center for their individual cities. If only a consolidated 911 center exists, they argued that city dwellers would be taxed twice - through a city tax and a county tax - for the same service.
However, Brenneman pointed to a long-standing written agreement among the four governments that obligated the three city governments to send money to the county's 911 center, since it provides ambulance and fire coordination for everyone. For some unknown reason, that contract has never been enforced, Brenneman said Monday.
Last week, Shaw said the cities are not required to send emergency dispatch funding to the county.
However, Brenneman pointed to a 1995 Montana Supreme Court ruling - in a case of Cut Bank vs. Glacier County - that concluded that county governments are not required to provide free dispatch services to cities. In Flathead County's case, the county is currently providing ambulance and fire dispatch services to the three cities for free.
Kalispell's council members gave no clear indication on how a majority stands on this particular matter.
Some council members voiced support for the county's 911 center to move with upgrade equipment to the county's Office of Emergency Services to study its operations and future budget.
Some council members were uncomfortable with the lack of solid budget figures.
Whitefish, Columbia Falls and Kalispell councils have been looking at a Whitefish-originated resolution - mirroring the one that the governments passed last year - to repeat their support for a consolidated center. That resolution also calls for "tax parity" in which constituents of all four governments would share the tax burden equally.
Last week, the Whitefish council passed the resolution. Also last week, the 911 board had qualms about the resolution not specifically addressing the scope of a tax levy.
Kalispell council members wondered Monday if the resolution is needed.
The Columbia Falls City Council is scheduled to discuss the resolution next week.
Reporter John Stang may be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at jstang@dailyinterlake.com