By Melinda J. Overstreet / Glasgow News 1
An hourlong meeting of the Barren-Metcalfe Emergency Communications Governing Board on Tuesday yielded much discussion but little action.
The special-called gathering of the 10-voting-member board was in lieu of the regular meeting date of Nov. 22 due to the Thanksgiving holiday last week.
Chairman Dwayne Hatcher, mayor of Cave City, said they had formed a committee at the last meeting to review and begin the updating process for the interlocal agreement among the entities represented on the board – each incorporated-city and county government in Barren and Metcalfe counties. In addition to the governmental representatives, one appointed resident from each of the counties’ serves on the board, and the counties’ emergency management directors are ex oficio nonvoting members.
The committee was to be composed of Gary Fancher, the Metcalfe County resident appointee, Emory Kidd, the Metcalfe County emergency management director, and Park City Mayor Larry Poteet.
Fancher, the chairman, said he and Kidd had talked and worked on it a little bit but they hadn’t had a chance to meet with Poteet and he had heard that one of the newly elected magistrates wanted to be on the committee or at least sit in on the meetings.
Neither Poteet nor Kidd were present at Tuesday’s meeting.
“The biggest thing that we’ve seen that was going to have to be changed on the interlocal agreement is the funding,” he said.
In the current agreement, the funding that this group oversees comes only from 911 fees on landline and wireless phone bills. This money is used for equipment, maintenance and training costs. Fancher said they are looking at options to change how funding is collected. He said they would try to have proposed changes ready by the next meeting, depending on what other decisions are made by then.
With that, Hatcher moved to the next item on the agenda, which was “discussion of proposed 911 fee.”
“I don’t even know where to start with this,” he said. “We’ve been beating this horse … forever.”
At the last meeting, Sept. 27, there were no updates from the Edmonton or Metcalfe County governmental bodies, Hatcher said. He mentioned there was at that meeting also a motion, according to the minutes which had just been approved, by Poteet that at the November meeting, those two governmental bodies should decide as to whether they would pay the ongoing monthly statements for their expenses provided by the BMECC bookkeeper or split from the BMECC or combine with the BMECC. The motion passed 6-2, with Fancher and Curt Estes, an Edmonton City Council member designated by the Edmonton mayor to occupy the board seat on his behalf, voting against it, according to the minutes.
Currently, all 911 calls placed within either of the counties are routed to the BMECC facility in Glasgow, which is the only certified 911 public safety answering point between the two counties. If the caller needs a Barren County fire or law enforcement agency to respond or needs emergency medical services only in either county, the call is completely handled here. If a law enforcement or fire agency within Metcalfe County is needed, the call is transferred to the dispatch center in Edmonton, or the Edmonton center is advised if either of those types of responses is needed in addition to EMS.
Barren County Judge-Executive Micheal Hale said that, going back to their meeting in June, maybe, when a motion was made for the Metcalfe entities to pay their portion going forward, “has that happened yet?”
Estes said they just got their first bill Nov. 18, and the council hasn’t met since then. Their next meeting is Monday, he said.
Linda Wells, treasurer for the Barren-Metcalfe Emergency Communications Center 911 Governing Board, from left, discusses an issue at Tuesday’s special-called board meeting as fellow members Wendell Honeycutt and Micheal Hale listen. Melinda J. Overstreet / Glasgow News 1
Linda Wells, the board’s treasurer, said that bill was for July, August and September. She said that during the September meeting, they had also decided to check with the insurance agent about some of those figures, and due to a miscommunication, the July bill had not gone out, so the three months’ together were sent last week. She said the bills had line items, but she had been asked by the Edmonton city clerk to provide invoices and/or for more detail on each of those line items, and she’s been working on that.
“My thought is, irregardless of what the bill is, the decision should have already been made by the fiscal court and the city council as to whether they were going to pay them,” Wells said.
She said those bills are averaging around $550 per month, but that’s going to increase some because they will need to purchase some new equipment soon.
She said she doesn’t want there to be uncertainty from month to month about whether they’re going to pay the bills, which is only going to be their fair share, regardless of the amount.
“We agreed on the splits of whatever the invoices are,” Wells said.
Hatcher said he thought it was a “pretty simple” decision of whether everyone wants to stay together and pay their fair share, and it shouldn’t have taken as long as it has for that to be decided.
“I think everybody around this table wants to continue together,” he said, “but at the same time there’s going to have to be a way for each entity to pay.”
The Edmonton council may not have met in the past month, but it’s definitely had the opportunity to and should have made this overall decision before now, Hatcher said.
“We’ve been trying to decide this for a year,” he said, with Hale advising him later it had been much longer than that.
This board had paid the part-time bookkeeper extra to go back and look at the last five years’ financial records, after a request from the Metcalfe entities, to examine how revenue and expenses were allotted, and that process indicated that $292,000 that should have been paid through Metcalfe County but was essentially covered by Barren County funds during that time.
Wells said that when that was done, “We didn’t go back and say, ‘You’ve got to pay all this from the past five years.’ We’re only going to start with July 1 of this year.”
Glasgow Councilman Wendell Honeycutt said Metcalfe Countians say they want their own people answering the phones, but if he ever has to call 911, he’s not going to care where the people are or where they’re from, as long as they know what to do, and where he is and how to get him help.
“That’s what’s important,” Honeycutt said. “It’s not really important, ‘Are they sitting here or are they sitting in Metcalfe County?”
Further discussion ensued about items such as the number of calls referred to the Metcalfe dispatch center, the percentage split for insurance coverage and a few examples of items about which there was some question.
Honeycutt said they are essentially asking the Metcalfe entities for more 911-fee funds to pay their portion of the bills, and Hale said the only way for the board to pay those bills otherwise is to use Barren County fee revenue.
“So we would have to up our telephone fees in order to do that,” Fancher said.
He added that they have looked at a variety of options to pay for the 911 center, but for now, he feels they are bound by the agreement as it is.
The agreement doesn’t specify anything about this or that county’s expenses and revenues or percentages that should be paid by each, as he noted. What it says is that the respective counties “shall remit the said [911 fee] net funds collected from the telephone companies to the [board, which] shall hold said funds and properly account for their receipts and expenditures.”
The funds shall be used to pay for the costs of establishing, maintaining and operating the emergency communications center in accordance with state law, and all receipts and disbursements for the operation are to be audited, all as required by state law, it specifies.
As time went on, an increasing degree of frustration was evident in the tone and volume of voices, and the increased use of phrases like, “I don’t mean this to be rude or disrespectful, but ….”
Ultimately, the question was left on hold at least until a meeting in December, which was set for 5:30 p.m. on the 15th.
It was noted more than once that multiple members – at least half — of the board will no longer be part of it after the first of the year, and some of those expressed a desire for the new members to not have to inherit this longstanding issue.
Barren County judge-executive elect Jamie Bewley Byrd and her Metcalfe County counterpart, Larry Wilson, were present to observe the meeting.
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