An article in the Times-Republican -- “Central Iowa’s Daily Newspaper” -- reports that city leaders want local legislators to back efforts to adequately fund E911 services.

In mid-November Sen. Steve Sodders, D-State Center, and Rep. Mark Smith, D-Marshalltown, according to the article, “spoke with city council members about advancing this initiative, as well as several others.

"911 centers are largely funded through surcharges from landline phones and mobile phones," said Marshalltown Police Chief Mike Tupper. "As technology advances, more and more people are dropping their landline phones - the surcharge money we receive back is much less and that's a concern."

The problem Tupper and others see is that if funding continues at its current rate, 911 centers might not receive the funding they need. And for that they point to recent legislative failures. "We tried to last year bring up the E911surcharge on cell phones to $1, to make it the same as landline phones, and simply could not get it passed in the House," Sodders said, adding that “people aren't using landlines, but getting the same (911) services."

Smith said while he supports trying to get adequate funding, his preference, according to the article, “was to look at existing revenue to fund those services.”

The realities of less funding are starting to make themselves felt. The Marshall County's 911 Communication Center has to rely on some outdated equipment, the article noted, and volunteer fire departments and first responders can no longer receive funding for new radios and pagers.

Teresa Lang, Public Safety Communications supervisor, told the Times-Republican that "It's a struggle for us to keep things up to date. We do have new 911 phone equipment that we had to save for years to purchase, but it drew down our reserve fund so we don't have a cushion any longer."

The county receives $11,000 quarterly from wireless surcharge fees and about $40,000 per quarter for landline fees. The E911 surcharge on wireless phones is 65 cents per month, with only a portion of those funds going back to local 911 services areas. The $1 surcharge on landlines is all directed back to local 911 boards. There are approximately 2.2 million cell phone subscribers in Iowa.