- March 8, 2025
Two bills that are currently making their way through the state Legislature would required that users of prepaid cell phones pay their fair share for a service that locates people when they call 911.
Currently, there is no fee for those services on prepaid cell phones; on land lines and contracted wireless phones, there is a charge of up to 50 cents per month. The proposed bills would reduce the E-911 fee for landlines and contracted cell phones to 46 cents and would place the same fee on prepaid mobile devices.
“Here’s the problem,” said Troy Harper, division chief for the emergency services department. “There are some folks in Tallahassee who see this as a new tax, even though it’s not. But is it fair for those people who have (contracted cell phones) to carry the whole cost of the 911 system when the folks who have prepaid have to carry none of it?”
Flagler County collects just under $500,000 in E-911 fees each year, Harper said. The E-911 fees pay for infrastructure and three staff members who work to identify 911 callers’ locations while they are talking to dispatch. Revenue from this fee covers about two-thirds of the cost of the service, Harper estimated.
It is difficult to measure how many prepaid devices are in use within the county, but Harper and his staff estimate anywhere from 5% to 25% of the division’s revenues would come from prepaid phones, if the bills pass. He added that the system would have a difficult time growing at the same rate as Flagler County is growing if the bills aren't passed. More people are using prepaid cell phones these days and fewer people are using landlines, he said.
“If (House Bill 807 and Senate Bill 1070) do not pass this year, counties will have to absorb the costs of running 911, essentially shifting the tax burden from users of the system to local governments,” said Carl Laundrie, communication manager for Flagler County.
County Administrator Craig Coffey and Special Projects Coordinator Andrew Johnson traveled to Tallahassee this week to stress to legislators the importance of passing the two bills.
A statewide moratorium was placed on the E-911 fees for prepaid cell phones several years ago to give legislators a chance to decide how to handle the phones, which, at the time, were fairly new. The prepaid devices raise questions of disbursement: If someone were to purchase a prepaid phone in Flagler County but then use it only in Volusia County, who gets the revenue from the E-911 fee?
There are also federal mandates that require emergency services to move toward accepting text messages to 911, which requires expensive infrastructure upgrades, Harper said.
“Depending on what happens, this (Legislature) could drastically slow our ability to sustain our 911 services,” Harper said. “We don’t want to see the state push responsibilities on certain items down to the county. … As a county, it would be very difficult for us to say we’re going to collect a fee on every phone.”
