Keeping up with the latest 911 technology is becoming pricier for Park County’s law enforcement agencies.

As a result, county commissioners plan to raise the surcharge on all phone lines to 75 cents per month — an increase of 25 cents per month, or $3 over the course of a year.

“We’re in decent shape now,” said Park County Commission Chairman Jake Fulkerson, noting that the county recently upgraded its 911 equipment in Cody and Powell. However, Fulkerson said more money will be needed going forward.

“[If] we stay where we’re at, we’re in trouble 10 years from now,” he said.

Commissioners indicated last week that they believe they must raise the fee — “I don’t think we have much choice,” said Commissioner Lloyd Thiel — but they’ll accept feedback through early August, when they plan to host a public hearing on the proposed increase.

The monthly fees are exclusively used on phone lines, hardware, software and other equipment needed to answer calls from and locate people experiencing an emergency.

Historically, the 50 cents per phone line (plus a 1.5 percent tax on prepaid cellphones) has provided enough money to cover day-to-day maintenance and upgrades for the county’s 911 systems in Powell and Cody, with additional money sent to Yellowstone National Park.

But things have gotten tighter in recent years.

Revenue from the phone fees has stayed fairly flat, while “technology keeps getting more and more expensive,” Park County Chief Information Officer Mike Conners said at last week’s commission meeting.

“I don’t like taxing any more than the next guy does, but the 911 systems are just so stinking expensive it’s ridiculous,” Conners added in an interview.

Last year, the county had enough money set aside in its Enhanced 911 account that it could spend about $300,500 to replace the 911 systems at the Park County Sheriff’s Office and the Powell Police Department. The prior systems had been in use since around 2006, so “we got way more than our money’s worth out of them,” Conners said.

Although the county has yet to enable the feature — as it would bring additional expenses — the new equipment is capable of handling new features, including text-to-911 communications.

However, the equipment will have to be replaced in five to seven years, and unless the E911 fee on phone lines is raised, “that amount of money’s not going to be there that next time around,” Conners said, “because we’re not gaining anything.”

As an illustration of the situation, the county expects to collect roughly $175,000 from the 50-cent per month surcharge in the coming year, while spending $150,000 to $172,000. Barely breaking even will do little to rebuild the E911 account, which has lost roughly $247,000 over the last five years.

Conners estimates that upping the monthly fee to 75 cents on the roughly 28,300 phone lines in the county would bring in an extra $85,000 per year. That would, in theory, allow the county to save up enough money for major upgrades — like the new systems that the county purchased last year.

Calling it a health and safety issue, Thiel recommended that the commissioners immediately raise the rates last week, without a public hearing.

“I think the sooner we start on this the better,” Thiel said, citing concerns that 911 costs might rise more quickly than the county expects; Park County Attorney Bryan Skoric concluded there’s no legal requirement to hold a hearing or even pass a resolution before raising the rate.

However, Fulkerson said he felt that “we owe it to our constituents” to do both of those two things, “just so everything’s fully documented and it’s all above board.”

Commissioner Joe Tilden agreed.

“I think it would behoove us to be totally transparent, because a lot of people out there don’t even know what 911 is,” Tilden said. “All they know is they have a crisis, they pick up the phone and somebody shows up.”

He said this public process will be an opportunity for people to learn more about the 911 system and the monthly charge on their cellphone bills.

If commissioners do vote to raise the rates, they’ll then notify the phone companies, which will have 90 days to start collecting the additional 25-cent per month fee on local phone lines, Conners said.

The fee has stood at 50 cents since commissioners first established it in 1993, Conners said; Park County is now one of only three Wyoming counties (along with Sublette and Fremont) charging 50 cents per line, he said.

The other 20 counties are charging 75 cents, which is the maximum allowed by state law. Some counties have pushed lawmakers to allow them to charge higher fees, “but we’re not to that yet,” Conners said.

Park County still has some breathing room, with $211,000 saved up in its E911 account from better years.

The public hearing is tentatively set for Tuesday, Aug. 6 at the Park County Courthouse.

(Editor's note: This version corrects the rough number of phone lines in the county, which the Tribune had incorrectly calculated.)