Johnson court approves 911 fee increase

By TONY FYFFE
BSN Editor

PAINTSVILLE — The Johnson County Fiscal Court last week approved an increase in the city-county 911 fee. The court, during a special meeting last Wednesday, had a final reading of an ordinance amendment to raise the 911 fee on landline telephones to $3. The first reading of the amendment was held at a special July 22 meeting, when Judge-Executive Mark McKenzie noted that the fee had not been increased since 1999. McKenzie said that the Paintsville/Johnson County 911 service, like all similar systems in Kentucky, has been “dealing with underfunding for several years” due to customers disconnecting their landline phones in favor of cell phones. “The funding for the 911 system has been collected through a fee on landlines, and we know that is not necessarily a sustainable database, a sustainable base of customers to which that we can derive the dollars for the 911 system,” McKenzie said. McKenzie said he and other local officials have been discussing for several months other options for funding the 911 system. “Unfortunately, because of the timeliness of getting some of these implemented, we weren’t able to come to a conclusion of those today or by this point in time,” McKenzie said. “But at the same time, we did not want to wait any longer in trying to provide support to 911, because we don’t want those services compromised.” At the special meeting last Wednesday, McKenzie said approval of the fee increase is only an “interim action.” “We want to immediately begin discussions and considerations for funding that will help sustain this service for the future so that it doesn’t continually have to be revisited relating to its currently funding sources, which is the landline fee.”