Wis. Assembly Panel Mulls NG-911 Bill

Wisconsin state legislators should greenlight a new grant program supporting migration from the state’s “woefully outdated” emergency call system, Wisconsin State Telecommunications Association Executive Director Bill Esbeck said Wednesday during an Assembly State Affairs Committee hearing. The committee mulled AB-356, which directs the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs to award grants that reimburse next-generation 911 (NG-911) costs of ILECs acting as originating service providers. Covered costs would include IP-based transport, database management and the purchase, installation and maintenance of equipment. The bill would limit the department from awarding more than one grant per ILEC per fiscal year. The state’s current 911 fund, which gets revenue from a 75-cent monthly charge on customer bills, will provide enough money but doesn’t allow cost recovery after the NG-911 transition, said Esbeck. He said that five of 72 Wisconsin counties have connected to the state’s emergency services IP network, but ILECs in those places have yet to cut over to it. Wisconsin’s 2023-2025 biennial budget restricted diverting 911 fee revenue for unrelated purposes, Esbeck noted. In 2009, the state renamed its 911 money as a “police and fire protection fund” and diverted cash to a general fund, he said. The new grant program would support NG-911 only, said AB-356 sponsor Rep. Tony Kurtz (R). While future legislators or governors could change state law to resume 911 fee diversion, “I think everybody in the state understands how important this is,” he said. “We’d be very foolish to change that.”