BILL ANALYSIS
AB 912
Page A
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 912 (Torres)
As Amended June 1, 2009
Majority vote
UTILITIES & COMMERCE 10-4 APPROPRIATIONS
12-5
-------------------------------------------------------------------
|Ayes:|Fuentes, De La Torre, |Ayes:|De Leon, Ammiano, Charles |
| |Carter, Fong, Furutani, | |Calderon, Davis, Fuentes, |
| |Huffman, Krekorian, | |Hall, John A. Perez, Price, |
| |Skinner, Swanson, Torrico | |Skinner, Solorio, |
| | | |Torlakson, Krekorian |
| | | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+----------------------------|
|Nays:|Duvall, Blakeslee, |Nays:|Nielsen, Duvall, Harkey, |
| |Fuller, Smyth | |Miller, |
| | | |Audra Strickland |
| | | | |
-------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY : Allows for a partial reallocation by the Department of
General Services (DGS) of revenues to the State Emergency
Telephone Number Account (911 surcharge account).
Specifically, this bill:
1)Specifies that a minimum of one-half of 1% of the charges for
intrastate telephone communications services must be spent on
six categories of expenditures specified in current law.
2)Authorizes DGS to allocate up to one-quarter of 1% of the
charges for intrastate telephone communications services of fund
revenues to Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) for the
one-time costs to recruit and train personnel to handle these
calls.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Establishes the Warren 911 Act of 1976, which funds for the
telecommunication service between a 911 caller and a public
safety dispatcher.
2)Imposes a surcharge on all intrastate telephone service that
shall be not less than .5% and not more than .75%, to provide
revenues sufficient to fund 911 emergency telephone system
AB 912
Page B
costs.
3)Provides that the Department of General Services (DGS) determine
the annual 911 budget requirement, and calculates the surcharge.
4)Provides that the all of funds collected under the 911 surcharge
account shall be spent solely for the following purposes:
a) To pay refunds authorized under statute;
b) To pay the State Board of Equalization for the cost of the
administration of the 911 funds;
c) To pay the DGS for its costs in administration of the 911
emergency telephone system; and,
d) To pay service suppliers and communications equipment
companies for the for the installation and ongoing expenses
for systems necessary to operating the 911 energy telephone
system
5)Federal law and regulations require wireless telephone providers
to automatically route 911 calls from mobile telephones to the
appropriate local public safety dispatcher and to provide the
dispatcher with the location of the telephone if the public
safety agency has requested the transfer of wireless calls.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, special fund costs of probably several million dollars
for payments to PSAPs for recruitment and training costs, provided
from revenue generated by an incremental increase in the surcharge
above 0.5%.
COMMENTS : According to the author's office, the purpose of this
bill is to deliver on the promise of the Warren 911 Act to create
a seamless, responsive universal 911 emergency call program
without regard to the technology used by caller accessing the
system. This bill intends to address that goal by giving local
jurisdictions the resources and incentives they need to accept 911
calls from mobile telephones so that mobile calls are not
initially routed to the California Highway Portal (CHP) before
being dispatched to local emergency officials.
When an individual calls 911 from a landline telephone, the call
is automatically routed to a local PSAP. The local PSAP has
AB 912
Page C
immediate access to the physical location of the caller and can
directly dispatch emergency services. When an individual calls
911 from a mobile telephone, the call may either be routed to a
CHP dispatch center or a local PSAP. When CHP receives a mobile
911 telephone call that requires a response from local emergency
responders, CHP will forward the call the appropriate local PSAP.
This secondary routing can result in critical delays in responding
to emergencies.
Federal rules require mobile providers to route 911 calls to the
local PSAP if PSAP has the ability to receive these 911 calls and
has requested that the mobile provider routes the calls to them
instead of CHP. Five years ago, no local primary PSAP answered
cell phone calls. Today of the 384 local Primary PSAPs, all but
34 of them answer 911 calls placed by a cell phone.
The Surcharge: DGS sets the annual surcharge, which must be
between 0.5% and 0.75% of the total amount of intrastate telephone
communication usage, and assesses the charge to customers through
a separate line item on the telephone bill. The surcharge is
currently set at .5% of intrastate telephone calls, and the
revenue generated to fund California's 911 program totaled about
$104 million in 2007-08. This revenue may only be used for the
physical equipment, software, and databases needed to route calls
to the dispatch centers and may not be used to fund personnel
costs at the dispatch centers.
The bill also allows for up to 25% of the funds collected to be
allocated to PSAPs that receive 911 calls from mobile telephones
and allows these funds to be used for one-time personnel costs.
The author hopes that allowing PSAPs to use a limited amount of
funds for personnel costs will create an incentive for the
thirty-four PSAPs that do not receive the mobile calls today to
begin receiving these calls.
Analysis Prepared by : Edward Randolph / U. & C. / (916)
319-2083
FN: 0001272