By Briana Vannozzi
Correspondent
There’s a little known fee tacked to your phone bill — both cell and landline — sandwiched between several other taxes on your statement. The New Jersey 9-1-1 System Emergency Response Fee charges 90 cents every bill cycle. And municipalities want to know where that money is going.
“We received funds up until about 2010. Generally it was about $350,000 to $380,000 a year which would help us pay for computer software or upgrades to the 9-1-1 phone system itself in our 9-1-1 center. Since that time we haven’t received any additional funds. The funding has been depleted,” said Monmouth County Sheriff Shaun Golden.
The initiative started in 2005. Fee collections for the new fiscal year are estimated at $124 million. Golden says the purpose for the tax was to upgrade 9-1-1 emergency response systems. More than 80 percent of the calls received here come from a cell phone, but the infrastructure doesn’t fully support it.
“We found that 11 percent of the money goes to support the actual network. The remaining 89 percent of it goes to public safety and law enforcement budget in the state,” New Jersey Wireless Association President Robert Ivanoff said.
Ivanoff’s all volunteer, nonprofit group did a deep dive on the numbers.
“New Jersey is the only state that does not make a priority of funding the 9-1-1 centers across the state. They even call it in some of their filings a diversion,” said Ivanoff.
The state statute does stipulate “revenue collected … will serve to replace 9-1-1 infrastructure statewide …” but it also says the revenue can pay for”… funding the state’s capital equipment … operating expenses that arise from emergency preparedness … and emergency response training” among other items.
“The state’s taking the money and keeping it for their own purpose. That’s their stance,” Ivanoff said.
A state spokesperson would only respond saying, “The Legislature always has used the 9-1-1 fee to fund many types of public safety programs — including the core, statewide infrastructure for the 9-1-1 system. That money continues to be used for state public safety expenses.”
“They should change the name of the fee because everybody is under the assumption that the 9-1-1 fee that everyone pays on their phone bill is for 9-1-1 services,” Golden said. ” Homeland Security money, I understand that it’s important, and there are other sources for that.”
This all comes as lawmakers are proposing to raise the fee by another 9 cents. Monmouth County leaders say if legislators are perplexed by public mistrust over spending they need to look no further than state-sanctioned loopholes.