Vote tight on 911 dispatch district
Flathead County voters were closely divided on Tuesday on a special emergency communications district that would fund the county’s consolidated 911 dispatch center.
Approval of the ballot request was trailing by 80 votes after midnight with 50 ballots still to be counted as well as 100 provisional ballots that will not be counted until Monday.
The vote was 14,936 against the referendum and 14,856 for the proposal.
The district would be funded using a flat annual fee similar to the way the county Solid Waste District is funded. The maximum fee is $25 per residential unit and $50 for each commercial unit, up to a maximum of 30 units for each commercial property. These fees will appear on property-tax bills.
Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry said that the district was the most fair and equitable option for funding the 911 dispatch center.
“This is even across the board,” Curry said prior to the election. “This is every resident in the county, even renters paying through their rent. Everyone has the same access to the 911 system, so this seemed like the most fair way to do it.”
When the dispatch center was consolidated in 2009, it was determined that a future funding committee should be formed to plan a way to sustain funding for the dispatch center.
That committee, made up of elected officials from the county and the three incorporated cities — Kalispell, Whitefish and Columbia Falls — proposed the special emergency communications district.
Curry, a member of the committee, said the initial agreement in 2009 left no room for capital improvements such as upgrades in technology or replacement of equipment. Specifically, the computers that receive the 911 calls and the software that allows dispatchers to communicate with police, fire and medical personnel in an emergency has not been upgraded since the center opened in 2010.
The 911 dispatch center budget is $3.9 million annually, $1.8 million of which will be raised by the district. That number was reached by taking the anticipated annual budget and working backward from current funding that relies on a county levy as well as special fees, Curry said.
“Technology changes,” Curry said. “Equipment wears out, you have to buy new computers, you have to buy new software, you need new servers. . . all of those things. There really was no mechanism to fund it.”
The district will also solve a crunch come budget time. Curry said every year was a struggle to locate funding for the dispatch center.
The future funding committee also looked at a vehicle license plate fee and federal funding as possible solutions, but landed on the special emergency communications district as its best option. The district eliminates a double-taxation issue created by the current system using county and city taxes to fund the center.