Editorial

911 tax

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Before emergency responders can help you they have to find you. That's the premise behind a proposed 75-cent-per-month cell phone tax that would equip counties throughout the state with cell phone tracking technology. Currently in Missouri there are varying levels of service. Eighteen counties, according to a recent Associated Press article, have no local 911 service on landline phones much less cell phones.

Fifty percent of the counties lack the ability to track cell phone callers' locations at all. Twenty counties can pinpoint a caller's location. Others, like Cape Girardeau County, can only find a general area.

According to Richard Knaup, Cape Girardeau County's new emergency operations coordinator, the county is getting a hardware upgrade at its 911 call centers. The upgrade is being paid for by local 911 funds. However, before the county could pinpoint an exact location, individual cell towers would have to be upgraded. That's where the 75-cent statewide tax would come in handy, he said. He said the tax would help cell phone companies offset their costs.

He also said emergency cell phone calls coming from people who don't know their exact location happen more often than you might think.

The state's top public safety official advocated the new tax during a legislative committee meeting last week. Missouri voters have twice rejected a proposed cell phone tax for 911 services.

Missouri is the only state without a statewide fee or tax for wireless 911 service. As more Missourians become dependent on cell phones, they are likely to want the benefits of 911 tracking in an emergency. If so, they are likely to more favorable toward a tax to pay for the improved technology.

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WOW 75 cents per month per every cell phone in the state of MO. Interesting that there's no projections on when the tax would stop.

I remember, maybe it was the last time this was put to a vote, the tax was only 50 cents.

-- Posted by Rodney King on Wed, Aug 15, 2007, at 9:29 AM
Hilleco, just your rants on Al Gore get old. This is a Republican controlled state, county and city. How can someone even dare make a statement like that, other than someone who thinks Rush is a genius.

-- Posted by cannedheat on Wed, Aug 15, 2007, at 10:26 AM
Hilleco, just your rants on Al Gore get old. This is a Republican controlled state, county and city. How can someone even dare make a statement like that, other than someone who thinks Rush is a genius.

-- Posted by cannedheat on Wed, Aug 15, 2007, at 10:39 AM
The tax would end when the capability to call 9-1-1 ended. It is expensive to build the infrastructure to locate callers and it is expensive to put a trained person in the position to answer the call.

Calls to a 9-1-1 center multiply several times when they start receiving wireless calls, and most of them are accidental or duplicate calls on the same incident.

Kids playing with cell phones (even inactive ones) constitute a large number of wireline calls.

Fifty well-meaning people calling about the same accident on the highway also take a lot of time. Of course, nobody wants to discourage people from calling when they see an accident or, God forbid, everybody assumes someone else called.

This seventy-five cents per month is a bargain...

-- Posted by bobby62914 on Wed, Aug 15, 2007, at 11:15 AM
"Kids playing with cell phones (even inactive ones) constitute a large number of wireline calls."

Should read:

Kids playing with cell phones (even inactive ones) constitute a large number of wireless calls.

-- Posted by bobby62914 on Wed, Aug 15, 2007, at 11:17 AM
I agree Bobby62914. Everyone wants the most advanced, state of the art emergency services, but nobody wants to pay for it. This money does not appear out of thin air, and this is especially true in So IL (I picked up on 62914). With more and more people getting rid of land line phones and moving to cell phones, I think it only fitting to put this on a cell phone bill.

-- Posted by allen6177 on Wed, Aug 15, 2007, at 12:43 PM
So...this tax would actually be going to the cell phone companies to upgrade their towers, right?

-- Posted by gurusmom on Wed, Aug 15, 2007, at 1:45 PM
Should have President Bush pay for it since he funded the eavesdropping program and ATT participated by sending thousands of phone records including domestic records. So why do we have to pay for a 911 tax when the government funds what they want and when they want. Also, cell phone taxes are already expensive, my Cingular bill was $ 200 this month with $ 35 in just taxes.

-- Posted by semo on Wed, Aug 15, 2007, at 8:39 PM
This should be done.... but it should be done by the cell phone companies not thru taxes.

-- Posted by Make no mistake about it on Wed, Aug 15, 2007, at 10:02 PM
Stop all this excessive taxation! Everything is tax tax tax. Enough!!

-- Posted by Make no mistake about it on Wed, Aug 15, 2007, at 10:03 PM

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