Public Safety Concerned on 911 Fee Diversion NPRM
Public safety advocates asked the FCC not to cast a wide net in defining what constitutes 911 fee diversion, as required by the Don’t Break Up the T-Band Act (see 2102160064). Doing so runs the risk of excluding states from several federal resources due to the actions of a few bad actors, said filings in docket 20-291. Comments on proposed rules were due Tuesday. Some telecom associations also sought more certainty.
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Addressing fee diversion is a “complex issue that entails both legal and practical issues,” wrote the National Public Safety Telecommunications Council. NPSTC said localities shouldn’t be punished when they have “absolutely no control” over what their state does with 911 fees. The FCC didn’t comment Wednesday.
When the decision is made to divert 911 fees, it's done by a state's legislature, and 911 offices have little to no say, said the National Association of State 911 Administrators. Be wary of “federal dictation to the entirety of the states based on the decisions of a few actor states,” NASNA said. New York and New Jersey did 95% of all fee diversion in recent years, the group said.
If the FCC too broadly defines what constitutes fee diversion, it could prevent states from receiving federal funds included in the Leading Infrastructure for Tomorrow's America Act to deploy next-generation 911, NASNA said (see 2103110060). An expert residing in a state deemed to be a diverter could be barred from advisory panels, even if that person wasn't part of diversion decision-making, NPSTC said.
Further clarify what are "acceptable obligations or expenditures" for 911 functions that don't constitute fee shuffling, CTIA asked. "Expand the proposed declaratory ruling process to enable other stakeholders, including communications providers and public safety organizations, to request FCC guidance over whether certain measures constitute 9-1-1 fee diversion." T-Mobile said it wants the "definition of 'fee diversion'" to include "all instances where 911 fees are not being used for 911 costs. This is a challenging task, as 911 fees may be diverted to support valid public safety needs but that are too attenuated from the provision of 911 service." NCTA backed the proposed rules, given it agrees "with Congress and the Commission that stronger action needs to be taken to stop" such fee misuse.
Revise the plan so “911 fee or charge” is "specifically designated for the support of 911 services," asked the New York State Homeland Security and Emergency Services Division. It now "includes fees and charges which support a broader set of purposes, to include 911 services, which is overbroad, overreaching, and outside the scope of the authority for this rule." Proposed examples of unacceptable 911 fee uses are “ambiguous,” said the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.
States should be allowed to establish subsets of acceptable expenditures, said Mission Critical Partners. Not all states have dedicated funding mechanisms for 911 services, said APCO. Labeling a state as a diverter if an expense wasn’t included in a preapproved list of acceptable purposes “does not necessarily align with the broader goal of ensuring the adequacy of funding for 911,” it said.
Defining specific uses of 911 fees without the oversight of local jurisdictions presumes a “one size fits all” mentality that's “not reality and could be devastating to local government ability to provide a robust and reliable” 911 system, said Colorado emergency phone service entities. “The goal should be to limit fee diversion, not to limit the ability of local government to fund reliable public safety networks.” Public safety radio systems, for example, should be considered appropriate use of 911 funding, said Michigan 911 entities. Michigan’s Newaygo County 911 Authority Board commented that the proposed rules “impinge upon Michigan’s ability to determine the definition of allowable costs of 911 fees.”