Hoping that the squeaky wheel will get a little grease, Will County officials plan to reach out to state legislators through letters, calls and resolutions to demand that funds earmarked for 911 emergency services be released by the state.
During Tuesday’s legislative and policy committee meeting, Steve Rauter, director of Western Will County Communications Center and legislative liaison to the state 911 advisory board, reported that the state is sitting on more than $16 million in funds collected from a telephone surcharge that is earmarked for the 911 systems throughout the state.
The state collects 87 cents per phone line each month and should pass those funds on to local 911 systems.
Will County is supposed to receive about $330,000 per month from those funds, but the state is currently three months behind, owing the county about $1 million, Rauter said.
“The money is there. They are collecting it and it is earmarked for 911,” said Rauter. “When you ask them why they are sitting on it, you don’t get an answer.”
He and other 911 officials fear the state will sweep those millions and use them for something else. Last year, the state swept $7 million in 911 funds for its own use, of which $700,000 should have come to Will County.
If the state takes funds meant for 911, which it has every year since 2008, it makes local 911 agencies, like Will County, ineligible for federal grants, Rauter said.
The county’s 911 system is getting by for now on its reserves, and held off on major purchases, but it will have to spend money for the new 911 consolidated dispatch center that will be built as part of the county’s new public safety complex at U.S. 52 and Laraway Road.
The state also required improvements in technology, but there is no money for that, Rauter said.
Earlier this year, the County Board passed a resolution opposing the sweeping of any funds.
“Those (telephone surcharge) funds were never intended to be diverted to anything else,” said board Speaker Jim Moustis, R-Frankfort Township. “This is a legislative issue.”
Rauter also said under the current “unfair” funding formula, Will County does not keep all the money collected by phone users here, but is subsidizing other counties.
Above and beyond passing a resolution and writing letters, committee member Beth Rice, D-Bolingbrook, said county representatives need to work aggressively and continuously with legislators to find out, “What they are going to do about it.”
Committee Chairwoman Suzanne Hart, R-Naperville, said they should also get this issue on the agenda of the Will County Governmental League, and become the voice for all Will County municipalities.
“We have to work as one,” she said.
