Subject: [NEXTEL-1] E911 Funding Comes From Unique Source-Tobacco health settlement money pays for E911 implementations in rural Georgia.

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 02:23:40 -0400

E911 Funding Comes From Unique Source-Tobacco health settlement money
pays for E911 implementations in rural Georgia.
BY MARK ROCKWELL

MAY 15, 2004

WIRELESS WEEK

State and federal officials are concerned that smaller municipalities —
pressured by tightening purse strings — are too often reallocating money
earmarked for local E911 facilities installation and need guidance to
establish those emergency networks. In response, states are looking for
innovative sources of money to help fund the job and new ways to manage
lagging E911 network installation.

Although the installation of E911 facilities at public safety answering
points (PSAPs) continues at a quickening pace, state and federal
regulators suggest not enough is being done to support the efforts,
particularly at the local level. The National Governors' Association
(NGA) released a report in mid-April that concluded that E911 systems
installation and services aren't well-documented and need better
organization and funding. The NGA paper encourages state governors to
implement initiatives that will help them to get a better handle on how
E911 programs are being installed and funded in their states. The report
also recommends that states name a statewide coordinator for E911 and
identify opportunities to fund installations.

Teetering on passage in the U.S. Congress, new federal rules aim to
prevent cash-starved states from "raiding" E911 surcharge money pools
for other purposes. If passed, states will have to take a hard look at
alternative funding.

One state already has found an unlikely funding source that could
jumpstart technology implementation in its poorest counties: tobacco
settlement money. In the 1990s, states filed tobacco lawsuits to recover
costs associated with caring for smokers. The lawsuits were settled by
2000, and the courts awarded $206 billion in damages to 46 states as
health-related compensation. Under its settlement, the state of Georgia
will receive about $1.6 billion over the next 25 years, according to
OneGeorgia Authority, the state organization in charge of the money's
distribution.

Tapping into money from its settlement, Georgia has quietly allocated
millions of dollars to install E911 facilities in the state's poorest
counties. In August 2002, the state's counties received $3 million to
install wireline and wireless E911 centers and networks, says Elaine
Sexton, Georgia's E911 program coordinator.

Other states depend mostly on the wireless 911 surcharge to fund
implementation efforts. States rarely, if ever, use alternative funding
sources beyond those surcharges, says Steve Marzolf, president of the
National Association of State 911 Administrators (NASNA) and public
safety communications coordinator for the Commonwealth of Virginia. That
doesn't mean, however, that other states can't use the tobacco money to
fund E911 applications. To be eligible for a grant under the Georgia
program, counties must partner with neighboring counties.

Funding levels vary and depend on the number of counties that have
banded together. The more counties involved in a single request, the
more funding they are eligible to receive.

The reason only groups, rather than individual communities, are eligible
to apply, boils down to wanting neighbors to work together more
efficiently, according to Nancy Cobb, director of OneGeorgia. The
restrictions are intended to build partnerships at the local level that
will foster better coordination for E911 services and networks, she
says. In turn, the basic protective service that E911 supplies can begin
to provide the foundation for economic development in those areas. "You
can't get economic development if you can't get basic protection," Cobb
says.

http://www.wirelessweek.com/article/CA417726?spacedesc=Departments&stt=000

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