COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
Senate Bill No. 728
(By Senator Chafin)
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[Originating in the Committee on Finance;
reported February 27, 2006.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §24-6-5 and §24-6-6b of the Code of
West Virginia, 1931, as amended, all relating to enhanced
emergency telephone system requirements; requiring an
investigation on character and criminal background to be
conducted by and at the expense of the State Police on certain
persons to be employed in an emergency dispatch center;
prohibiting persons with felony convictions from holding
certain positions; and assignment of a portion of the wireless
enhanced 911 fee money received by Public Service Commission
to Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §24-6-5 and §24-6-6b of the Code of West Virginia, 1931,
as amended, be amended and reenacted, all to read as follows:
ARTICLE 6. LOCAL EMERGENCY TELEPHONE SYSTEM.
§24-6-5. Enhanced emergency telephone system requirements.
(a) An enhanced emergency telephone system, at a minimum,
shall provide that:
(1) All the territory in the county, including every municipal
corporation in the county, which is served by telephone company
central office equipment that will permit such a system to be
established
shall be is included in the system:
Provided, That if
a portion of the county or a portion of a municipal corporation
within the county is already being served by an enhanced emergency
telephone system, that portion of the county or municipality may be
excluded from the county enhanced emergency telephone system;
(2) Every emergency service provider that provides emergency
service within the territory of a county participate in the system;
(3) Each county answering point be operated constantly;
(4) Each emergency service provider participating in the
system maintain a telephone number in addition to the one provided
for in the system; and
(5) If the county answering point personnel reasonably
determine that a call is not an emergency, the personnel provide
the caller with the number of the appropriate emergency service
provider.
(b) To the extent possible, enhanced emergency telephone
systems shall be centralized.
(c) In developing an enhanced emergency telephone system, the
county commission or the West Virginia State Police shall seek the advice of both the telephone companies providing local exchange
service within the county and the local emergency providers.
(d) As a condition of employment, any person employed to act
as the director of an emergency dispatch center, who dispatches
emergency calls or supervises the dispatching of emergency call
takers, shall prior to the commencement of his or her employment be
subjected to an investigation of their character and background.
This investigation shall include, at a minimum, a criminal
background check conducted by the State Police at its expense. Any
felony conviction uncovered during this investigation shall act as
an automatic exclusion to hold any of these positions. This
requirement applies prospectively. The requirement takes effect on
the first day of July, two thousand six.
(d) (e) As a condition of continued employment, persons
employed to dispatch emergency calls shall successfully complete a
forty-hour nationally recognized training course for dispatchers
within one year of the date of their employment; except that
persons employed to dispatch emergency calls prior to the effective
date of this subsection, as a condition of continuing employment,
shall successfully complete such a course not later than the first
day of July, one thousand nine hundred ninety-five.
(e) (f) Each county or municipality shall appoint for each
answering point an enhanced emergency telephone system advisory
board consisting of at least six members to monitor the operation of the system. The board shall be appointed by the county or
municipality and shall include at least one member from affected
fire service providers, law-enforcement providers, emergency
medical providers and emergency services providers participating in
the system and at least one member from the county or municipality.
The board may make recommendations to the county or municipality
concerning the operation of the system. In addition, the director
of the county or municipal enhanced telephone system shall serve as
an ex officio member of the advisory board. The initial advisory
board shall serve staggered terms of one, two and three years. The
initial terms of these appointees shall commence on the first day
of July, one thousand nine hundred ninety-four. All future
appointments shall be for terms of three years, except that an
appointment to fill a vacancy shall be for the unexpired term. All
members shall serve without compensation. The board shall adopt
such policies, rules and regulations as are necessary for its own
guidance. The board shall meet monthly on the day of each month
which the board may designate. The board may make recommendations
to the county or municipality concerning the operation of the
system.
(f) (g) Any advisory board established prior to the first day
of January, one thousand nine hundred ninety-four, shall have three
years to meet the criteria of subsection (e) of this section.
(g) (h) Nothing
herein contained shall be construed to prohibit or discourage in this section prohibits or discourages in
any way the establishment of multijurisdictional or regional
systems, or multijurisdictional or regional agreements for the
establishment of enhanced emergency telephone systems, and any
system established pursuant to this article may include the
territory of more than one public agency, or may include only a
portion of the territory of a public agency.
§24-6-6b. Wireless enhanced 911 fee.
(a) Beginning on the first day of January, one thousand nine
hundred ninety-eight, all CMRS providers, as defined in section two
of this article, shall, on a monthly basis, collect from each of
their in-state two-way service subscribers a wireless enhanced 911
fee. No later than the first day of August, one thousand nine
hundred ninety-eight, the Public Service Commission shall, after
the receipt of comments and the consideration of evidence presented
at a hearing, issue an order which directs the CMRS providers
regarding all relevant details of wireless enhanced 911 fee
collection, including the determination of who is considered an
in-state two-way service subscriber and which shall specify how the
CMRS providers shall deal with fee collection shortfalls caused by
uncollectible accounts. The Public Service Commission shall
solicit the views of the wireless telecommunications utilities
prior to issuing the order.
(b) The wireless enhanced 911 fee is three dollars per month for each valid retail commercial mobile radio service subscription,
as that term is defined by the Public Service Commission in its
order issued under subsection (a) of this section:
Provided, That
beginning on the first day of July, two thousand five, the wireless
enhanced 911 fee shall include ten cents to be distributed to the
West Virginia State Police to be used for equipment upgrades for
improving and integrating their communication efforts with those of
the enhanced 911 systems:
Provided, however, That for the fiscal
year beginning on the first day of July, two thousand five, and for
every fiscal year thereafter, one million dollars of the wireless
enhanced 911 fee shall be distributed by the Public Service
Commission to subsidize the construction of towers. The moneys
shall be deposited in a fund administered by the West Virginia
Public Service Commission, entitled Enhanced 911 Wireless Tower
Access Assistance Fund, and shall be expended in accordance with an
enhanced 911 wireless tower access matching grant order adopted by
the Public Service Commission. The Commission order shall contain
terms and conditions designed to provide financial assistance loans
or grants to state agencies, political subdivisions of the state
and wireless telephone carriers for the acquisition, equipping and
construction of new wireless towers, which would provide enhanced
911 service coverage, and which would not be available otherwise
due to marginal financial viability of the applicable tower
coverage area:
Provided further, That the grants shall be allocated among potential sites based on application from county
commissions demonstrating the need for enhanced 911 wireless
coverage in specific areas of this state. Any tower constructed
with assistance from the fund created by this subdivision shall be
available for use by emergency services, fire departments and law-
enforcement agencies communication equipment, so long as that use
does not interfere with the carrier's wireless signal:
And provided
further, That for the fiscal year beginning on the first day of
July, two thousand six, and for every fiscal year thereafter, five
percent of the wireless enhanced 911 fee money received by the
Public Service Commission shall be deposited in a special fund
established by the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency
Management to be used solely for the construction, maintenance and
upgrades of the West Virginia Interoperable Radio Project and any
other costs associated with establishing and maintaining the
infrastructure of the system. Any funds remaining in this fund at
the end of the fiscal year shall automatically be reappropriated
for the following year: And provided further, That the Public
Service Commission shall promulgate rules in accordance with
article three, chapter twenty-nine-a of this code to effectuate the
provisions of this subsection. The Public Service Commission is
specifically authorized to promulgate emergency rules.
(c) Beginning in the year one thousand nine hundred
ninety-seven, and every two years thereafter, the Public Service Commission shall conduct an audit of the wireless enhanced 911 fee
and shall recalculate the fee so that it is the weighted average
rounded to the nearest penny, as of the first day of March of the
respecification year, of all of the enhanced 911 fees imposed by
the counties which have adopted an enhanced 911 ordinance:
Provided, That the wireless enhanced 911 fee may never be increased
by more than twenty-five percent of its value at the beginning of
the respecification year:
Provided, however, That the fee may
never be less than the amount set in subsection (b) of this
section:
Provided further, That beginning on the first day of
July, two thousand five, the wireless enhanced 911 fee shall
include ten cents to be distributed to the West Virginia State
Police to be used for equipment upgrades for improving and
integrating their communication efforts with those of the enhanced
911 systems:
And provided further, That beginning on the first day
of July, two thousand five, one million dollars of the wireless
enhanced 911 fee shall be distributed by the Public Service
Commission to subsidize the construction of wireless towers as
specified in subsection (b) of this section
: And provided further,
That beginning the first day of July, two thousand six, five
percent of the wireless enhanced 911 fee shall be deposited in a
special fund established by the Division of Homeland Security and
Emergency Management for the purpose identified in subsection (b)
of this section.
(d) The CMRS providers shall, after retaining a three percent
billing fee, send the wireless enhanced 911 fee moneys collected,
on a monthly basis, to the Public Service Commission. The Public
Service Commission shall, on a quarterly and approximately evenly
staggered basis, disburse the fee revenue in the following manner:
(1) Each county that does not have a 911 ordinance in effect
as of the original effective date of this section in the year one
thousand nine hundred ninety-seven or has enacted a 911 ordinance
within the five years prior to the original effective date of this
section in the year one thousand nine hundred ninety-seven, shall
receive eight and one half tenths of one percent of the fee
revenues received by the Public Service Commission:
Provided, That
after the effective date of this section, in the year two thousand
five, when two or more counties consolidate into one county to
provide government services, the consolidated county shall receive
one percent of the fee revenues received by the Public Service
Commission for itself and for each county merged into the
consolidated county. Each county shall receive eight and one half
tenths of one percent of the remainder of the fee revenues received
by the Public Service Commission:
Provided, however, That after
the effective date of this section, in the year two thousand five,
when two or more counties consolidate into one county to provide
government services, the consolidated county shall receive one
percent of the fee revenues received by the Public Service Commission for itself and for each county merged into the
consolidated county. Then, from any moneys remaining, each county
shall receive a pro rata portion of that remainder based on that
county's population as determined in the most recent decennial
census as a percentage of the state total population. The Public
Service Commission shall recalculate the county disbursement
percentages on a yearly basis, with the changes effective on the
first day of July, and using data as of the preceding first day of
March. The public utilities which normally provide local exchange
telecommunications service by means of lines, wires, cables,
optical fibers or by other means extended to subscriber premises
shall supply the data to the Public Service Commission on a county
specific basis no later than the first day of June of each year;
(2) Counties which have an enhanced 911 ordinance in effect
shall receive their share of the wireless enhanced 911 fee revenue
for use in the same manner as the enhanced 911 fee revenues
received by those counties pursuant to their enhanced 911
ordinances;
(3) The Public Service Commission shall deposit the wireless
enhanced 911 fee revenue for each county which does not have an
enhanced 911 ordinance in effect into an escrow account which it
has established for that county. Any county with an escrow account
may, immediately upon adopting an enhanced 911 ordinance, receive
the moneys which have accumulated in the escrow account for use as specified in subdivision (2), subsection (d) of this section:
Provided, That a county that adopts a 911 ordinance after the
original effective date of this section in the year one thousand
nine hundred ninety-seven or has adopted a 911 ordinance within
five years of the original effective date of this section in the
year one thousand nine hundred ninety-seven, shall continue to
receive one percent of the total 911 fee revenue for a period of
five years following the adoption of the ordinance. Thereafter,
each county shall receive that county's eight and one half tenths
of one percent of the remaining fee revenue, plus that county's
additional pro rata portion of the fee revenues then remaining,
based on that county's population as determined in the most recent
decennial census as a percentage of the state total population:
Provided, however, That every five years from the year one thousand
nine hundred ninety-seven, all fee revenue residing in escrow
accounts shall be disbursed on the pro rata basis specified in
subdivision (1), subsection (d) of this section, except that data
for counties without enhanced 911 ordinances in effect shall be
omitted from the calculation and all escrow accounts shall begin
again with a zero balance.
(e) CMRS providers have the same rights and responsibilities
as other telephone service suppliers in dealing with the failure by
a subscriber of a CMRS provider to timely pay the wireless enhanced
911 fee.
(f) Notwithstanding the provisions of section one-a of this
article, for the purposes of this section, the term "county" means
one of the counties provided in section one, article one, chapter
one of this code.
(g) From any funds distributed to a county pursuant to this
section, a total of three percent shall be set aside in a special
fund to be used exclusively for the purchase of equipment that will
provide information regarding the x and y coordinates of persons
who call an emergency telephone system through a commercial mobile
radio service:
Provided, That upon purchase of the necessary
equipment, the special fund shall be dissolved and any surplus
shall be used for general operation of the emergency telephone
system as may otherwise be provided by law.
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