Huron County seeking support for 911 levy

NORWALK — Huron County commissioners want voters to approve a levy on the November ballot to upgrade the county's outdated 911 system.The five-year, .725 mill levy is a "small price to pay to ensure continued public safety," according to a news release from commissioners Terry Boose, Joe Hintz and Bruce "Skip" Wilde. The levy, which was approved for the ballot this past March, would cost $25.38 each year, or $2.12 per month, for a home valued at $100,000.The commissioners said the 911 system has been using the same copper lines for 30 years. Huron County Sheriff Todd Corbin said the system, which has experienced nine outages in the past 18 months, is due for an upgrade."It's old, obsolete and not working like it's supposed to," Corbin said.The 911 system is funded through Ohio's cell phone tax, which is a .25 cent charge for a cell phone customer each month.Officials said that's not enough to pay for 911 upgrades, known as Next Generation 911, which will bring better GPS location accuracy and ability to send texts, photos and videos to 911 dispatchers. The commissioners estimated a cost of between $300,000 to $400,000 to purchase equipment needed for Next Generation 911.The state will soon be mandating that agencies have these capabilities — but the state currently has no plan to give agencies funding for those mandates."While no one wants to increase property taxes, our state legislature refuses to increase the 911 state fee that funds 911," said Tacy Bond, 911 coordinator for the county's emergency management agency. "We need the support of the voters to pass this levy to allow us to upgrade the system so it will be safer for both residents and first responders across the entire county."What the levy would be used forIf approved, the levy would bring in about $862,100 each year, Bond said. The money would be used to pay for new equipment, networking, infrastructure repairs, communication upgrades and training for dispatchers.Bond said the levy will not be used to pay for wages or personnel costs.Updating the system will include adding two separate fiber communication lines coming from different areas to have a built-in backup system, the commissioners' release states.Bond said this creates a "geo-diverse" system, meaning if one of the lines stops working, for whatever reason, the other line for the 911 system should remain active.Corbin said money from the levy would also be used to purchase portable radios for some county agencies that don't have them. The commissioners said some agencies are currently using cell phones to talk to 911 dispatchers.Benefits of the upgradesCorbin said county's 911 system outages have not resulted in any deaths, but he said the levy is necessary to prevent any tragedy."We don't want someone to die because we're not doing our job," he said. "We're trying to build for the future. (It would give) a better quality of service, better communication, increased training and technical ability, people being able to use 911 for live streaming, video chat. It would give us another wrinkle to give better services to people."Corbin said the upgraded system would provide better GPS location accuracy for calls, especially with the majority of people using mobile phones."If you call us on a cell phone we need to pinpoint where you're at," he said.Huron County's 911 system handed 14,491 calls last year, according to commissioners."If you call 911, you need help and you need it quickly," the news release states. "Next generation equipment makes that possible."Visit our Huron County Sheriff's Office hub for more storiesReach reporter Brandon Addeo at brandonaddeo@sanduskyregister.com, follow him on Twitter @BrandonAddeo and follow the Register at Facebook.com/SanduskyRegister(From left to right) Huron County commissioners Joe Hintz, Terry Boose and Bruce "Skip" Wilde joined local law enforcement and emergency response agencies voicing support for an upcoming levy to improve 911 services countywide. Huron County Sheriff Todd CorbinTacy Bond