Public Service Answering Point reimbursements moving forward from Madison County

by Randy Pierce • Legislation authorizing reimbursements totaling $743,366 to local emergency public service answering points (PSAPs) was scheduled for approval this week by the Madison County Board after passing through its public safety committee with unanimous support on Monday, July 7.

Calculated at $13 per every call answered by telecommunicators at those locations where 9-1-1 response originates, the reimbursement resolution covers a period from December of 2024 through the end of May.

According to Arron Weber, 9-1-1 coordinator for the county, that $13 per call compensation was initiated in 2018 as the result of a study to determine what the actual cost for each was, taking into consideration the salaries, benefits and training expenses for the personnel involved.

Since then, the Madison County Emergency Telephone System Board, established to oversee implementation and maintenance of the enhanced 9-1-1 emergency telephone system in the county, has, with the required approval by elected officials, been reimbursing the PSAPs every six months.

Incorporated into this most recent process, as explained by Weber, was the finalization of the movement of calls formerly handled by Pontoon Beach into the Glen Carbon PSAP which occurred after the end of January.

Along with Glen Carbon, Collinsville is among the municipalities’ PSAPs also receiving reimbursement through a consolidation plan that has been under way for the past several years as a result of a state mandate issued in 2016, reducing what was originally 16 in Madison County down to seven. The Troy PSAP was dissolved and moved to Edwardsville.

At this month’s meeting of the public safety committee, its chairman Terry Eaker of Bethalto, asked Weber for his take on the outcome and benefits concerning this entire consolidation scenario.

“Years ago,” Weber responded, “I didn’t like it because I didn’t think it would work. The one thing that we have been fortunate enough to do is when we consolidated the PSAPs down to where it is now, we made sure that we had meeting after meeting after meeting with the agencies involved to ensure that, say, Collinsville, for some reason, didn’t get consolidated at all.”

“We wanted to make sure that we did it properly and that when we did do it, that it made sense” so that neighboring agencies, in those situations where they absorbed calls from another PSAP, could take on the additional volume,” Weber continued.

He had announced late last year that Collinsville’s PSAP will remain autonomous because of the volume of calls a larger municipality like it receives while also acting as a back-up for Granite City should the latter’s system malfunction or stop working for some reason. Pontoon Beach was the PSAP back-up for Granite City previously, however, with Glen Carbon absorbing the former, that is no longer possible.

“It has worked,” Weber went on in answering Eaker, “It has been working extremely well so far.”

He cautioned, however, there is a possibility of more such circumstances looming in the future, “With the costs of connections going up, the cost of technology going up, I see down the road that the state may issue another mandated consolidation if we don’t do it before that.”

“With these PSAP reimbursements,” Weber noted, “that greatly helps these municipalities supplement some of their costs for their equipment and personnel and training.”

The Madison County Sheriff’s Department chief deputy, Marcos Pulido, when asked by Eaker for his input regarding the consolidation, said, “It has worked as good as it can be.”

“You may get some community members going, ‘Hey, I don’t like that my dispatcher is not in the same city that I’m in’ and things like that,” Pulido shared. “What I can tell you is we’re having to deal with it, so we deal with it. It’s a very organized collaboration that we all have.”

“The training that our telecommunicators get is top notch. It’s pretty awesome,” Pulido said further, concluding that, “We here still provide them with adequate field service.”

All of the PSAPs handle emergency calls for police and fire departments along with, as applicable, ambulance service. The Collinsville PSAP additionally takes calls for the State Park Fire Protection District which lies just outside of the city’s southwesterly boundary line.

The usage of 9-1-1, similar to other areas in the United States, concerns the three-digit telephone number that can be dialed from any phone in Madison County, 24 hours a day, in order to report police, fire, or medical emergencies.  This service is available with both landline and wireless telephones.

The Madison County 9-1-1 coordinator’s office offers experienced personnel who provide day-to-day operation, maintenance and upgrading of the existing system. In addition, the office accepts applications for new addresses from individual citizens, developers and builders of residences, subdivisions or businesses throughout Madison County. The new addresses are added to the 9-1-1 property list which is the most comprehensive address file in the county.

Employees of the 9-1-1 coordinator’s office also administer all training for applicable telecommunicators throughout the county. A database of the records of the training completed on an individual basis is maintained to ensure that all required certifications are continuously up to date.

Those employees also make presentations to Madison County organizations and residents concerning the 9-1-1 system which are appropriately structured to reach audiences of all ages.

Madison County is not the only one required to follow this consolidation order which is statewide. There is a surcharge designated for 9-1-1 support on everyone’s telephone service bill, showing up on it every six months, which is collected by the state that was initiated as a means of helping offset the costs of purchasing and installing the necessary equipment with a share of those funds provided to each county.

Connected with the order to consolidate the PSAPs, the state is now keeping a much greater share of that surcharge income with the counties getting less. Another factor involved in this situation concerns how the previous 9-1-1 system had become obsolete, thus necessitating its replacement.

This all started on January 1, 2016, when the Illinois General Assembly’s adopted legislation, amending its Emergency Telephone System Act, repealing provisions in existence at that time, for the purpose of consolidating local 9-1-1 units in preparation for a statewide conversion to a more modernized “next generation” system.

Significantly for municipalities and counties, that legislative action severely limited local control of the operation and maintenance of emergency telephone systems by rescinding the authority of those government units to collect telecommunications surcharges and instead replacing them with a statewide surcharge while also ordering the aforementioned consolidation.