Thurston Co. voters to decide on a sales-tax increase for emergency communications
Thurston County’s 911 dispatch center is one step closer to funding a radio system upgrade, following a Board of County Commissioners vote Tuesday.
The board voted unanimously to put a measure on the November ballot that, if approved, would increase the Thurston County sales tax that goes toward emergency communications — from 1 cent to 2 cents per $10 taxable purchase.
Thurston 9-1-1 Communications (TCOMM 911) fields emergency phone calls for all of Thurston County and dispatches all public safety responders — police, fire, and medical services — in response to those calls, aside from Washington State Patrol. Staff answered nearly 335,000 emergency calls in 2018, according to TCOMM’s annual report.
Leaders at TCOMM 911 and its participating public safety agencies say the radio system that dispatchers and responders use to communicate is outdated, inadequate, and incompatible with technology used by other responding agencies.
Keith Flewelling, executive director for TCOMM 911, told The Olympian the organization’s current analog radio system is more than 40 years old.
“It really was recommended to be replaced in 2008,” Flewelling said, but a replacement wasn’t possible during the recession.
He named three specific challenges with the current radio system:
- Major components of the system are falling out of manufacturer support, which will make it hard to find replacement parts;
- TCOMM 911 has reached its capacity for expanding both airtime and the number of users on its system; and
- The system’s coverage area isn’t adequate for responders.
Olympia Fire Chief Gregory Wright told a Senate committee earlier this year that the system has poor reception in crowded areas like downtown Olympia, and in steel, brick, and concrete structures.
And when it comes to working with agencies that use digital systems, Wright and Steve Brooks, Chief of Lacey Fire District 3, said TCOMM 911’s analog system isn’t compatible.
One example of that incompatibility in the field: Brooks said he was one of the responders on Interstate 5 when an Amtrak train derailed in December 2017. Since Pierce County and Joint Base Lewis-McChord use digital systems, Brooks said the three primary responding agencies weren’t able to “interoperate.”
“We, literally, were passing notes back and forth and walking hand-in-hand to make sure that we could communicate in a very trying time,” Brooks said at the hearing.
At a Board of County Commissioners meeting Tuesday, Commissioner John Hutchings commented on the difficulty first responders faced that day.
“The level of lack of communication between our first responders and local and jurisdictional, surrounding first responders was completely unacceptable and dysfunctional, to the point that it added a level of difficulty in providing services to victims and the public,” Hutchings said. “So, this is ... one of those things that is absolutely paramount — and has been for a number of years — of paramount importance: delivering proper emergency services to our citizens and to the public.”
In 2017, consulting firm Hatfield and Dawson estimated the start-up costs of the replacement at $30 million.
Currently, TCOMM 911 is funded in part by a county-wide sales and use tax of one-tenth of 1 percent — 1 penny per $10 taxable purchase in Thurston County. The tax was originally approved by Thurston County voters in 2002, when it passed with nearly 58.5 percent of the vote.
Before 2002, Flewelling said TCOMM 911 was collecting fees from participating public safety agencies. For example, he said, the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office was paying upward of $800,000 per year to use the system. He said such fees are “really common” in the industry, but that TCOMM 911 did away with the fees and returned the money to the agencies’ budgets.
“We don’t do that here, because our philosophy is that we will find a source to pay for that and allow our agencies to focus on their primary mission,” Flewelling said.
During the 2019 legislative session, the state Legislature passed a bill that gives counties the authority to increase that tax to two-tenths of 1 percent, with voter approval. Under state law, counties must use the money collected via the tax to finance, construct, maintain, remodel, repair, and operate emergency communications systems and facilities.
The average revenue from the tax for years 2006 through 2018 was $4.45 million per year, Flewelling wrote in an email to The Olympian. Revenue from the tax makes up roughly 62 percent of TCOMM 911’s adopted budget for 2019. If the increase of one-tenth of 1 percent is approved by voters, he said he would expect the revenue to double, though he clarified that sales-tax revenue is unpredictable.
Flewelling said the new tax should be enough to meet the debt service for replacing the system — he said TCOMM 911 will use existing towers and co-locate with other agencies where it can — and also allow for increased staffing. On top of the technical issues, Flewelling said TCOMM 911 is currently staffed at below national standards for emergency communication centers.
If a simple majority of voters approve the measure in November, the increased tax will become a reality. If voters don’t pass the measure, Flewelling said TCOMM 911 will have to look at alternatives, like turning back to the fees it once collected from the agencies that use its system.
“There’s no alternative to replacing the system,” Flewelling said. “We have to do that.”
This story was originally published July 24, 2019 at 8:00 AM.
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