The Greene County 911 Board approved Greene County 911’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget during the board’s meeting Wednesday afternoon.
The central dispatch agency’s approved budget includes a 3% cost-of-living pay increase for employees. The pay raise will increase the agency’s annual budget by about $119,000 compared to the previous fiscal year.
The budget projects $2.75 million in revenues, and $2.71 million in operating expenses. The budge would result in a positive net to the agency of about $34,000.
Greene County 911 had been hoping to receive additional funding through changes that could have come to 911 surcharges collected by dealers of communication services, such as cellphone providers. However, state legislation that would have increased the surcharge 36 cents was recently vetoed by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee.
The legislation, Senate Joint Resolution 48, was approved 27-6 in the State Senate and 75-15 in the State House of Representatives.
The resolution would have increased the 911 surcharge collected by dealers of communications services or prepaid communication services, from $1.50 to $1.86 with an effective date of September 1, 2026.
The surcharge is how the state provides funding to 911 services across Tennessee, including Greene County 911 Central Dispatch.
Greene County 911 would have received about $333,000 in new funding from the state through the surcharge resolution, which was formally recommended to the legislature by the Tennessee Emergency Communications Board after a review of financial data from 911 districts in Tennessee.
However, Gov. Lee used his veto power for only the second time in his nearly eight years as governor to reject the resolution that would have benefitted the state’s 911 agencies, even after it received broad bipartisan support in the state legislature.
That veto could put more financial pressure on local 911 agencies such as Greene County 911, and the local governments that fund them. Greene County 911 requests funding from Greene County and each of the four municipalities in the county in order to operate. The requests are based on populations and call volumes.
Members of the Greene County 911 Board expressed dismay at the governor’s veto of the resolution, and said they hoped that he may be persuaded to change his mind.
In his brief veto letter, Lee calls the 911 surcharge a “tax,” and notes that he wanted a state study completed on the state’s emergency communications funding model before any action was taken. He also notes that Tennessee Emergency Communications Fund has “substantial reserves.”
In a letter sent to Lee, the Tennessee Emergency Number Association (TENA), whose membership is comprised of public safety communications professionals representing the Emergency Communications District’s throughout Tennessee, asks Lee to reconsider his veto.
In the letter, penned by TENA President James Long who is also director of Blount County 911, TENA says that the Governor mischaracterized the surcharge as a tax, which he says is misleading.
“This is not a tax. It is a statutorily authorized dedicated 911 service fee (often called a surcharge) collected exclusively from wireless and wireline telephone subscribers pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 7-86-128 et seq. These funds are legally restricted by state law to a single purpose: supporting emergency communications operations and infrastructure. Not one penny can be diverted to the general fund or any unrelated government expense,” Long writes in the letter.
He also states that the reserve mentioned by Lee does not address day-to-day operating expenses of local 911 agencies, and that the fund was meant to address statewide infrastructure needs.
If Lee does not reconsider his veto, it is possible that it could be overridden by the Tennessee legislature. A simple majority vote of members of both the Tennessee House of Representatives and State Senate would overturn Lee’s veto if taken up by members of the legislature.
Lee’s veto letter and TENA’s letter of response can be found at the link’s below.
Greene County 911 expects to incur a major expense in the coming years involving its communication equipment.
The agency has been informed by Motorola that the agency’s radio system and call works controller system will reach the end of its life and no longer be supported in 2030. The agency has had the equipment since 2016.
The cost of a new radio and controller system is estimated at about $1.2 million.
The financial situation of Central Dispatch has been improving in recent years thanks to the efforts of local officials, and contributions from Greene County and the four municipalities in the county.
