BILL ANALYSIS 1
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SENATE ENERGY, UTILITIES AND COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
DEBRA BOWEN, CHAIRWOMAN
AB 1477 - Hertzberg Hearing
Date: July 10, 2001 A
As Introduced: February 23, 2001 FISCAL B
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DESCRIPTION
Current law provides for a "911" Emergency Telephone Service
system, which is financed by a surcharge on all residential and
business telephone bills, and caps that surcharge at 0.75% of a
customer's telephone bill.
Current law provides for a pilot program to test a "311"
non-emergency telephone system.
This bill authorizes local public agencies to establish a "311"
non-emergency telephone system within their jurisdictions. If a
local public agency doesn't notify the affected county and the
Department of General Services (DGS) by January 1, 2006 of its
intent to establish a "311" system, the county may establish
such a system.
This bill allows local public agencies to pay for such a system
by imposing a surcharge on intrastate telephone bills for
customers within the local public agency's jurisdiction of not
more than 0.5% of a customer's phone bill administered through
the State Board of Equalization.
This bill requires the Telecommunications Division within DGS to
develop technical and operational standards for the "311" system
by January 1, 2003. DGS shall review local public agency plans
for their "311" system to ensure they comply with the DGS
standards and shall monitor the "311" systems to ensure they
remain in compliance.
BACKGROUND
"911" is the number for emergency telephone service. This
service was created in 1976 and paid for by a statewide
surcharge (statutorily capped at 0.75%) on each telephone bill.
The number of calls to "911" has grown faster that the number of
operators needed to answer those calls. In Los Angeles, it's
been reported that 5% of all "911" calls went unanswered and 27%
of the calls took ten or more seconds to answer. In the San
Francisco Bay Area, 23% of "911" calls made by cellular
telephones went unanswered.
A significant number of "911" calls are for non-emergency
purposes - estimates on just how many calls are of a
non-emergency variety range from as low as 20% to as high as
95%. Here in Sacramento, officials estimate between 50% and 80%
of "911" calls aren't true emergencies. Current law makes it a
misdemeanor to use the "911" system for anything other than
reporting emergencies, though this has obviously not been a
successful deterrent.
One idea for relieving the pressure on the "911" system is to
provide an alternate means of contacting public safety agencies
for non-emergency purposes. In 1996, President Clinton called
for the creation of a nationwide non-emergency telephone service
similar to "911." In 1997, the Federal Communications
Commission ordered that "311" service be made available for that
purpose and in that same year, the Legislature passed AB 1198
(Hertzberg), Chapter 887, Statutes of 1997, which created a
"311" pilot program in San Jose. Under the pilot, a "311"
number was tested against an attempt to educate the public about
an existing 7-digit non-emergency public assistance number.
In 1999, a final draft report on the results of the pilot
program found that both approaches improved "911" response and
that the "311" program was the more effective of the two
approaches. Under the "311" program, the average "911" answer
time decreased by 26%, and the number of non-emergency calls to
"911" decreased by 63%. The City of San Jose was one of the
pilot project cities. It found the "311" system relieved
pressure on the "911" system and has elected to continue the
operation of the "311" system past the end of the pilot project.
This year, the two-house Budget Conference Committee has
apparently proposed transferring $40 million from the "911" fund
to the General Fund as part of SB 75 (Peace), the annual budget
bill, which is pending on both floor of the Legislature.
Similar transfers occurred in the early 1980's and, most
recently, in fiscal years 1991-92, 1992-93, and 1993-94.
COMMENTS
1)How Much Should The Surcharge Be? Last year, this committee
and the Legislature passed a nearly identical measure, AB 2837
(Hertzberg). The only significant difference is the amount of
the surcharge that a public agency could levy to create a
"311" system. Last year's bill limited the surcharge to 0.25%
of a customer's bill, but this measure permits a surcharge of
up to 0.5%. The author has agreed to lower the surcharge cap
to 0.25%, making this bill virtually identical to last year's
AB 2837.
2)Veto Message . As noted above, this bill is virtually
identical to AB 2837 (Hertzberg) of 2000. That bill was
vetoed by the Governor, who stated in his veto message:
While the concept for a separate non-emergency
telephone system is a good one, the potential costs
for this program are unknown at this time. Without
pilot projects to provide the data necessary to
estimate costs for this program, it would be premature
to approve this measure.
Use of specific numbering resources falls primarily
within the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s
jurisdiction. The California Public Utilities
Commission (PUC) manages California's valuable
numbering resources in compliance with those federal
rules and is currently coordinating with the FCC to
implement 211 and 511, respectively, for other uses.
I am directing the PUC to look at the provision of 311
services in concert with their existing 211 and 511
proceedings.
3)Mandatory Statewide Application vs. Voluntary Local
Application . Conceptually, this bill replicates the statewide
"911" program on a voluntary basis for "311" non-emergency
services with the hope, based on the pilot projects, that the
response time for true emergency "911" calls will decrease by
diverting non-emergency calls to "311."
One of the benefits of the "911" system is that it's universal
- no matter where you go in California, the service exists.
Allowing local jurisdictions to establish a "311"
non-emergency system will have the benefit - as the San Jose
pilot program demonstrated - of diverting non-emergency phone
calls away from the "911" system. However, if the system is
adopted in checkerboard fashion by local agencies, it could be
argued that the benefit won't be as great to the system (or
the people who truly need emergency help) as it would if it
were a universal system similar to the "911" system.
4)Narrowing The Universe To Cities Or Counties . As noted above,
the bill allows "public agencies" to create their own "311"
non-emergency system, instead of relying on a locally elected
city council or board of supervisors. This raises several
logistical questions.
The first is the issue of telephone billing complexity,
because each telephone customer would need to be matched to a
public safety agency for the purpose of assessing the
surcharge and that public safety agency may not mirror city
boundaries or utility service territories.
The second is the issue of "economies of scale." If three
neighboring public agencies set up three different "311"
non-emergency systems, that wouldn't be as cost effective as
if they were to band together and create one system that all
of them could share. While the bill puts the DGS Division of
Telecommunications in charge of setting standards and
arbitrating disputes, allowing each individual agency the
ability to set up its own system will undoubtedly lead to
conflicts and diseconomies, though each system will be better
tailored to the need of the local community.
The author and committee may wish to consider limiting the
creation of a "311" non-emergency system to a citywide basis
(which would limit the potential number of systems to 450+)
and/or a countywide basis (which would limit the potential
number of systems to 58) to narrow the potential for conflict.
5)Technically Speaking . The bill is intended to give local
public agencies the first option of creating a "311" system.
If the local public entity doesn't elect to create such a
system and notify the county by January 1, 2006, then the
county is authorized to establish a system. The author and
committee may wish to consider clarifying the language in the
bill to also require any local public agency that wants to
establish a "311" system to also notify the county. Also, the
author and committee may with to consider clarifying that the
period until January 1, 2006 is an exclusive period for the
local agencies to propose a "311" system.
ASSEMBLY VOTES
Assembly Floor (74-1)
Assembly Appropriations Committee (19-0)
Assembly Governmental Organization Committee
(15-0)
POSITIONS
Sponsor:
Author
Support:
Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs
City of Los Angeles
City of San Jose
League of California Cities
Los Angeles Fire Department
Los Angeles Police Department
Los Angeles Police Protective League
Riverside Sheriff's Association
Oppose:
City of Dana Point
State Board of Equalization
Randy Chinn
AB 1477 Analysis
Hearing Date: July 10, 2001