Emergency Communications Board

BRISTOL TENNESSEE EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS DISTRICT BOARD OF DIRECTORS’ MEETING January 15, 2014 ITEM 1. Roll Call Frank Blanton – absent, Wallace Elliott - absent. Ricky Curtis – absent. ITEM 2. Recognize Guests Mike Callahan ITEM 3. Minutes of Previous Meeting – November 20, 2013 Jim Messimer made a motion to approve the November 20, 2013 minutes. Motion seconded by Tim Eads. Motion passed. ITEM 4. Financials A. Receipts & Expenditures All receipts/expenditures were passed to each Board member for their review. B. Treasurer’s Report Treasurer Warren reviewed the monthly balance sheet, monthly financial report and the monthly budget report. Tim Eads made a motion to approve the Treasurer's reports as presented. Dwayne Honaker inquired as to the reason for the $179 bill on the internet. Mrs. Smelser explained this was the installation and one month service for the new internet feed at the Police garage that will operate our backup 911 command posts. Motion was seconded by Dwayne Honaker. Roll call: Blanton – absent, Eads – yes, Elliott – absent, Honaker – yes, Messimer – yes, Wade – yes, Warren – yes. Motion passed. C. Review Preliminary City Contract Formula for 2015 Budget Year Mrs. Smelser reviewed the proposed City contract formula for budget year 2014. ITEM 5. Old Business A. Report on Operations & Equipment 1. Overview of Operations a. Daily Operations Insurance investigators came to the center and reviewed the problem with the electrical shortage/surge. They are debating who is at fault or who caused the surge that shorted out the equipment. Mrs. Smelser has spoken with the telco and the adjuster. The telco is supposed to provide the replacement cost estimates to be submitted to the insurance. There have been no major problems since the last meeting. We did have an ice storm that created a larger than normal call volume. Over all things are working real well. The candidate for the dispatch position failed part of her background so she has been disqualified. Another candidate is having her background  BRISTOL TENNESSEE EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS DISTRICT BOARD OF DIRECTORS’ MEETING January 15, 2014 processed. The supervisor position is still open but should be filled very soon. b. Status Update on Web page Move to City Server The city has put together a committee called the Public Information Group. Mrs. Smelser is on the committee. Part of the function of the committee is to complete the new web page. c. Update on GEO/GIS/TIPS The State has admitted there is a problem with the data and error rate. They have forwarded us our GIS/GEO payment and stated that our data is within the requirements at this time. Another report has been received and David Metzger and Jon Hamic are reviewing the report at this time. Officer Eury has been on light duty and has been working with us on auditing our MSAG. He has finished the comparison between the City MSAG and the CAD GEO and the comparison between the City MSAG and the telco files. He has produced us a list of possible issues that we will need to follow up on with additions, deletions and corrections. d. Update on Upgrade to New Protocol/QA Tri Tech sent us an estimate for the interface between our CAD and the Total Response system which was about $38,000. The Total Response vendor is working with Tri Tech to reduce this cost. B. Statistics Mrs. Smelser reviewed the year end and monthly statistics. C. Update on Regional 911 Solution There was another 4 second outage last week. This affected Washington County 911, Johnson County 911, Sullivan County 911, Kingsport 911, and Greene County 911. Unicoi County 911 and Carter County 911 are building new centers and have not cutover yet. Our cutover is scheduled for February 4, 2014. D. TENA’s Legislation Proposal TENA’s legislative proposal has been reviewed by all the 911 Districts in the State and passed back to Senator Norris’ office. This legislation is proposing a uniform surcharge rate across the board between businesses, residential, wireless, and wireline. The proposal is $1.16 per month and places a 200 line surcharge cap per building. The law allows the TECB to raise the surcharge rate subject to notice and approval of the majority vote of the joint fiscal review committee of the General Assembly. Any communications service priced below $5 per month or any prepaid communication service priced below $10 per month are exemption from exemption from the surcharge per this new legislation. The vendors will submit the surcharge money to the TECB every two months and take their 3%  BRISTOL TENNESSEE EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS DISTRICT BOARD OF DIRECTORS’ MEETING January 15, 2014 admin fee off the top. The 911 entities themselves will no longer collect the fees directly. The State will collect the funds and then remit them to the Districts. It gives the TECB exclusive authority to bring claims against the carriers and establishes the Tennessee Claims Commission as the adjudicator for any claims. It protects the 911 funds from raiding from the State government. The legislation mandates that each District receive an amount equal to or greater than the average of revenue for fiscal years 2010, 2011, and 2012. In December 2014, the TECB will establish the base amount that each District will receive. If a District has not maxed out their current surcharge rate prior to the implementation, it provides that the TECB can allow them additional funding. We are not maxed out on our residential rate. There is a requirement that the TECB distribute a minimum of 50% of the revenue in excess of the fiscal requirements of the TECB and the mandatory bi-monthly payments to the Districts. The bill limits the liability of the ECD responding to emergency calls except for instances of recklessness and provides immunity from liability to the carriers relating to 911. It expands this immunity to the employees of the ECD. This will not cover our employees as they are not employed by the ECD. The bills requires TACIR to do another study on the 911 funding, surcharge rates, the impact of the next general 911 equipment on cost, ECD consolidation, TECB board membership and local board makeup, and the efficiency of TECB staffing and operations. This report is due to the General Assembly in September 2017. The TECB can no longer consider depreciation costs as an operating expense in determining the financial distress status of an ECD. If this bill passes, it will take effect January 2015. This will have a direct impact on our 2014-2015 budget. ITEM 6. New Business A. Request for approval up to $40,000 to purchase a replacement UPS unit. (This is 100% reimbursable from the Tennessee Emergency Communications Board.) The old UPS will be given back to the City. Discussion of the purchase is deferred to next meeting. ITEM 7. Discussion Items In the course of turning in a copy of our audit to the City, Tara Musick has determined that our budget can no longer be a component of the City’s audit due to changes in GASB and the State law. The TECB has sent us reimbursement funding for the loss of revenue from Charter. The amount was a little over $26,000. ITEM 8. Other Matters ITEM 9. Citizens and Delegations Presentation ITEM 10. Next meeting February 19, 2014