Law360 Quotes Paul J. Napoli
Napoli added that their argument is supported by official state data, as he said, “a detailed report for the state comptroller found the counties were taken advantage of in the past, this is their opportunity to redress the past abuses by these carriers.”
NY Counties Join Battle Over 911 Fees Against Telecoms, Law360 (May 2, 2019).
911 SURCHARGE LITIGATION Cities, counties and municipalities are frequently required to provide 911 emergency services to their citizens. In recent years, 911 services have been upgraded to provide computerized 911 services, including call tracing, GPS capabilities (which enable 911 dispatch to locate the caller), the capability to contact 911 via text message, and other technological enhancements. All these services are essential and life-saving, but come at substantial cost. To finance the cost of providing 911 services (which total billions of dollars nationwide), cities, counties and municipalities frequently impose a surcharge on landline and wireless telephone service. Such 911 surcharges are calculated as a set fee per telephone number or telephone line (including wireless lines and “Voice of Internet Protocol” lines, or telephone access provided using Internet service). These surcharges have been instrumental in providing a means for cities, counties and municipalities to finance the significant cost of providing 911 emergency services. However, the telephone service providers have not been collecting near enough to finance the cost of 911 emergency services — leaving a multibillion dollar deficit Collecting the surcharge is contrary to the interests of telephone service providers because doing so could potentially negatively affect their relationships with their customers. Indeed, certain telephone service providers have declined to collect the correct 911 surcharge, and/ or have turned a blind eye against customers’ failure to pay it, to appear more attractive than competitors who have been collecting the surcharge. Further, telephone service provides have advised customers how to decrease the number of lines they use — and, thus, their 911 surcharges. The cities, counties and
municipalities are the ultimate losers in this competitive game between telephone service providers, because far less than the full amount of the 911 surcharge due is collected – leading to deficits in funding, and local governments having to dip into their own pockets to fund 911 services. As just a small example of the telephone service providers’ failure to comply with their statutory obligations, George Maragos, Comptroller of Nassau County, released a report entitled “Limited Review of E911 Emergency Telephone System Surcharge Revenues.” This report provided a review of the 911 Surcharge revenues received in Nassau County from Verizon on landline, VoIP, and wireless carriers during 2012–2014.
Nassau County Audit Report Findings Verizon owes the County $466,916 because it failed to pay part of the monthly surcharge on phone bills due to the County. The review noted that from the period 2011
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