Sikeston, county officials to discuss 911 options

SIKESTON, Mo. -- Sikeston city officials will meet with area county officials Wednesday to discuss 911 dispatching issues and options.

"One of the things that came out of our VISION meetings when we talked about ways to improve not only Sikeston but the region was the idea that 911 might be something we could do regionally," city manager Doug Friend said.

Officials from neighboring Scott, New Madrid, Mississippi and Stoddard counties are invited to attend the meeting at Sikeston's city hall.

The purpose is to "sit, visit and discuss 911, the problems each entity is experiencing and from that point see if there might be some questions that can be answered from a regional approach," Friend said.

Funding for 911 comes from a tax paid on phones with traditional land lines, Friend said, "and as those land lines are being disconnected, that is reducing the revenue for each [911 dispatching] entity."

Scott County Commissioner Dennis Ziegenhorn said the growing use of cell phones is creating budget problems for 911 centers.

Counties operating 911 centers are having to take funds out of their general revenue, he said, to keep them open.

Missouri is the only state without a 911 tax on cell phones. Voters have shot down attempts to establish such a tax twice already.

"And the legislature is probably not going to give us a tax on cell phones," Ziegenhorn said.

The wide use of cell phones is also resulting in an increase in the number of 911 calls as citizens are able to conveniently call in emergencies they witness.

"You will get 40 people calling from a cell phone to report the same accident," Ziegenhorn said, "and you have to take all those calls."

In addition to the personnel costs associated with staffing a 911 center, equipment must be updated on a regular basis.

"It's very expensive," Ziegenhorn said. "We're very fortunate to have people who know a lot about 911 systems like DPS director Drew Juden and Donna Ballard, 911 administrator for Scott County."

As some counties have struggled with increasing costs and declining revenue for several years now, the idea of pooling resources is possible solution that keeps coming up.

Technology makes it feasible to "have one major location," Ziegenhorn said. "It would make sense to have some sort of regional 911 center."

Ziegenhorn said that while technology makes it possible to do 911 dispatching from anywhere in the world, dispatchers should be at least somewhat familiar with the area.

"I don't want to call India and tell them we have an emergency here," he said. "Let's be reasonable about where the call center is going to be located."

Ziegenhorn said he is hoping for a good turnout for Wednesday's meeting.

"We're going to see what the possibilities are, what we need to do," he said. "This is something that really needs to be moving forward -- 911 is of vital importance to our area."

Friend agreed.

"It will be good to at least initiate the discussions and get everybody's ideas," Friend said.