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PARKERSBURG -- Wood County 911 officials are worried that a proposed bill being considered by the state governor's office would cut into 911 funding.
Wood County 911 Director Rick Woodyard recently told the Wood County Commission that a bill that could be presented to the West Virginia Legislature would take 11 percent of wireless fees that are collected and distributed to 911 centers and split them up among the West Virginia State Police, the state's Tower Fund and the state's Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
"We are opposed to that," Woodyard said.
The state's 911 systems are funded through landline fees and wireless fees, he said.
"We get no other income," Woodyard said. "We have to run it through that."
The state is continually seeing a decline in landline fees as more and more people switch over to cellphones as their primary telephone. Woodyard said they have been projecting a five percent annual decrease in landline fees, but it has been a lot more than that.
"This year we are seeing a $152,000 decrease in our incoming money," he said.
The increase in wireless fees will amount to $54,000.
"If we took an 11 percent cut then we will be deeply in the hole," Woodyard said. "That will tank us.
"We are opposed to that."
Many counties across the state are seeing declines in landline fees. Woodyard expects the funding through landline fees will have to be looked at as more and more people are using cellphones.
"We have a lot of transient workers in the community," he said of people working temporarily in the area.
These people do not pay any 911 fees at all. The remaining people with landlines are covering a lot of the costs for services for those people.
"Those fees are on a very steep decline," he said.
An additional cut of 11 percent on top of that could affect 911 operations.
"That will impact quality of service and technologies," Woodyard said. "It is going to hurt what we can do."