Make sure your 911 cell fees come to Brantley

Thursday, 22 July 2010 12:03

By Ron Ham

1 Comments

When the Emergency Management Agency (EMA) and County Commission closed the process by purchasing and installing the E911 equipment, the county was to start receiving the $1.50 per cell phone that Brantley County citizens were already paying to other counties depending on where they purchased their phone.

Once those funds started coming in, Billy Lartz, EMA Director knew that the funds were well below the expected amount based on the rough count of cell phones for Brantley County that was provided by Verizon, Alltel, AT&T, etc. At this point the county has requested a formal audit of all phones with addresses within Brantley County. We can expect some problems with Brantley County citizens' accounts where they have a Waycross, Patterson or Wayne county address. Their problem is much larger.

So for grins, I checked my own cell phone account with Verizon. We have four cell phones on our account and as you might have guessed, three were coming to Brantley County but one, mine, was still going to Wayne County. Now I've had this number for years and it was originally a Wayne County cell number which I've carried with me through the last couple of jobs. I called *611 tonight to ask them to move my E911 fee to Brantley County as it should be based on my address. Unfortunately the lady at customer service isn't allowed to change that. So she directed me to financial services at 866-266-1445. So tomorrow I'll call them and see if they can correct this for me.

In this case we, the cell phone users, are already paying the fee so it is no increase to us. But by getting the fee directed to Brantley County, we are increasing our revenues without increasing the burden on the taxpayer and cell phone user. So please look through your accounts and all the phones on your account to make sure under the TAXES, GOVERNMENT SURCHARGES & FEES section it says Brantley County E911 and Brantley County Sales Tax. One dollar per cell phone per month in Brantley County represents about $200,000 or more each year in revenue at no additional cost to the cell phone user. So please check your bill and call your provider to make sure your fees are coming to Brantley County.

(Ham is the chairman of the Brantley County Board of Commissioners.)