In Lapeer County, the 9-1-1 Center is funded operationally from a telephone surcharge. The mainstay of the funds come from landline telephones. Currently we charge $3.70 per line per month. 9-1-1 centers also collect surcharge money from cellular phones but at a fraction of the income from land line users.

The money collected from cell phone users goes directly to the State and the State distributes the money to each County based on population.

The money collected from landline telephone users goes directly to the 9-1-1 Center in each County/jurisdiction in which the user lives.

As cell phones become more and more popular and people drop their traditional land lines in favor of a cell phone only lifestyle, 9-1-1 centers across the nation feel the brunt of the financial losses of surcharge monies.

In Michigan, the State Legislature is currently debating a pair of bills to equalize the income of surcharge monies to the State's 9-1-1 Centers. The hope is to drop the price of the land line surcharge and raise the wireless surcharge to be equal across the board.  It will include any carrier of telephony service that has access to 9-1-1 to be tapped for the 9-1-1 surcharge to continue funding the centers.

In Lapeer County the loss of land lines in favor of cell phones are increasing, thus decreasing the operational budget of the Center.

Loss of landlines in:
2004 Total lines: 48,397 - Loss = 581
2005 Total lines: 47,776 - Loss = 621
2006 Total lines: 46,142 - Loss = 1634
2007 Total lines: 45,646 - Loss = 496 - 1st quarter

Please contact your state Senators and Representatives and ask them to support the following two bills in their original form.

Click the links below to follow the Legislature's progress on these two bills.

Michigan Senate Bill 410
Michigan Senate Bill 411

Contact your Representative
Contact your Senator