‘What’s broken in Wyoming’, Legislators search for 911 solutions

RIVERTON — Every American learns as a child: In an emergency, be it a fire, a heart attack, or a break-in, you dial 911. But what happens when the call doesn’t connect?

Between April 2023 and April 2024, the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security tracked at least 13 outages that impacted 911 systems within the state and/or the ability to page emergency responders. Some of these outages went on for hours or even days before the phone company notified anyone of the outage; in some cases, the phone company never sent out a notification at all.

In order to move forward with solutions, Sen.Bill Landen (R-Casper) said, first legislators need to understand “what’s broken in Wyoming, and what we’re trying to fix.”

The Wyoming Legislature Joint Committee on Elections, Corporations, and Political Subdivisions tackled the issue last week during its meeting in Evanston.

Nathan Smolinski, 911 statewide coordinator, statewide interoperability coordinator, and Wyoming Department of Transportation chief technology officer, walked the committee through a detailed document that aims to do just that.

The document proposes extensive changes designed to update Wyoming’s current system – which Park County Sheriff’s Office Communications Supervisor Monte McClain earlier told the committee “was considered state-of-the-art in 1972” — to a Next Generation 911 system.

The document also proposes changes to who has to pay a 911 surcharge and how high each county can set that surcharge.

“Currently the ceiling sits at 75 cents per line per user. That has been in effect since 1988,” Smolinski explained. “Just as a reminder, that’s roughly still falling about one-third short, statewide, of the revenue collected versus the revenue expended.”

Right now, Smolinski said, counties are covering that one third shortage out of their own pockets.

As of a few years ago, he added, every county is at this 75-cent threshold; adjusted for inflation, Sen. Brian Boner (R-Douglas) later calculated, 75 cents in 1988 is equivalent to $2.04 today.

Rep. Cody Wylie (R-Rock Springs) suggested that a $2.50 surcharge threshold may be more reasonable than $5. Smolinski proposed raising this ceiling to $5 to allow counties to raise surcharges to cover both current 911 costs and the cost of upgrading the 911 system – and to give some room for future inflation, so the counties will have more time before having to start dipping into their own pockets again.

The proposal also includes adding broadband to the list of services that could be charged such a surcharge.

This increase was met with some pushback from several committee members as well as from industry representatives present at the meeting. Industry was not part of the working group that developed the recommendations in front of the committee, Verizon and Charter’s Jody Levin told the committee, and she had significant concerns about both the technical challenges of implementing some of the recommendations and the prospect of passing on a higher surcharge to customers.

“There’s nothing more important than public safety, but in small states, we have to have realistic conversations about what that looks like and how you fund a system,” Levin said.

Industry usually passes these fees directly on to consumers, she said, and she expects that a $5 surcharge per line per user wouldn’t go over well with most customers.

Ultimately, NG911 could actually represent a cost savings compared to the state’s current expensive-to-maintain outdated equipment — although, pointed out committee chair Sen. Cale Case (R-Lander), the big difference is that the new system would be more reliable and more extensive in what it can offer.

“I think we’re going to find out that the new generations, the new capabilities of 911 are much more robust, so people actually get more than they used to.”

It’s a better system, he commented, not necessarily a cheaper one.

For example, when someone calls 911 from a cell phone now, modern satellite technology allows the exact location of that phone to be pinpointed by emergency responders.

“That’s a huge benefit which we didn’t have before, but it also comes at a great cost,” Case pointed out.

The real potential for cost savings, Case and Smolinski both pointed out, actually comes from the possibility of increased regionalization as the new system is put into place. As things currently stand, Wyoming has an unusually high number of 911 call centers for its population, with two in Fremont County alone. There is a certain degree to which the state’s low population density across large expanses demands more services per person, but some areas have successfully consolidated some of their resources, reducing their costs.

For example, in Sweetwater County, three 911 call centers were combined into one; now, rather than having to buy three of each piece of equipment, the county only needs one.

“There’s a lot in here,” Case commented. “There’s a big increase in fees. We would be having a bill drafted,” and the legislators seemed uncertain whether it was possible or wise to attempt to make all of the changes Smolinski proposed this year, given there’s only one more interim meeting left before the legislative session.

“If we’re going to propose this kind of a major policy change, we just need the ammunition to do that,” remarked Landen, and time to build momentum behind and public support for the changes.

On the other hand, pointed out Smolinski and Wyoming Emergency Communications 911 Planning Coordinator Aimee Binning, the state has been planning on – and putting off – implementing an NG911 system for years.

Not taking any action this year would simply be continuing to kick the can down the road, Smolinski argued.

Several legislators suggested that perhaps rather than trying to implement everything recommended wholesale, a few items could be identified to bring to the upcoming legislative session as bills while other elements may need more time to be worked on.

Industry representative Jason Hendricks, with Range Communications, told the committee that one fix could feasibly be implemented within the next year.

Under current outage notification requirements, in some of the more rural parts of the state it can be more than a day before anyone is notified that 911 is experiencing an outage; Hendricks said that switching Wyoming’s outage notification requirements over to be based on the actual length of the outage rather than subscriber minutes would require working through some technicalities but probably could happen on a faster schedule than some of the other proposed changes.

The committee established a working group which will include industry representatives to report back about changes to reporting requirements at the committee’s next meeting in October.

Other parts of the recommendations brought by Smolinski likely won’t see serious consideration until next year’s legislative session, to allow more time for industry input and public comment.

“At least in my mind, there won’t be a lot of movement on a fee increase until we see plans on consolidation to save money,” Case remarked in a later interview.

This story was published on August 7, 2024.