Senate Bill No. 250
(By Senator Rowe and Love)
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[Introduced January 18, 2002; referred to the Committee
on the Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact section six-b, article six, chapter
twenty-four of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine
hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to prohibiting
scheduled fee increases relative to the wireless enhanced
911 fee.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section six-b, article six, chapter twenty-four of the
code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as
amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 6. LOCAL EMERGENCY TELEPHONE SYSTEM.
§24-6-6b. Wireless enhanced 911 fee.
(a) Beginning on the first day of January, one thousand nine
hundred ninety-eight, all CMRS providers, as defined in section
two of this article, shall, on a monthly basis, collect from each of their in-state two-way service subscribers a wireless
enhanced 911 fee. No later than the first day of August, one
thousand nine hundred ninety-eight, the public service
commission, shall, after the receipt of comments and the
consideration of evidence presented at a hearing, issue an order
which directs the CMRS providers regarding all relevant details
of wireless enhanced 911 fee collection, including the
determination of who is considered an in-state two-way service
subscriber and which shall specify how the CMRS providers shall
deal with fee collection shortfalls caused by uncollectible
accounts. The public service commission shall solicit the views
of the wireless telecommunications utilities prior to issuing
the order.
(b) The wireless enhanced 911 fee is seventy-five cents per
month for each valid retail commercial mobile radio service
subscription, as that term is defined by the public service
commission in its order issued under subsection (a) of this
section.
(c) Beginning in the year one thousand nine hundred
ninety-seven, and every two years thereafter, the public service
commission shall conduct an audit of the wireless enhanced 911
fee and shall recalculate the fee so that it is the weighted
average rounded to the nearest penny, as of the first day of March of the respecification year, of all of the enhanced 911
fees imposed by the counties which have adopted an enhanced 911
ordinance:
Provided, That the wireless enhanced 911 fee may
never be increased by more than twenty-five percent of its value
at the beginning of the respecification year:
Provided,
however, That no further fee increases may be imposed for the
year two thousand two and thereafter without prior legislative
approval.
(d) The CMRS providers shall, after retaining a three
percent billing fee, send the wireless enhanced 911 fee moneys
collected, on a monthly basis, to the public service commission.
The public service commission shall, on a quarterly and
approximately evenly staggered basis, disburse the fee revenue
in the following manner:
(1) Each county that does not have a 911 ordinance in effect
as of the effective date of this section or has enacted a 911
ordinance within the five years prior to the effective date of
this section shall receive one percent of the fee revenues
received by the public service commission and from the remainder
of the revenues, each county shall receive a pro rata portion of
the fee revenues received by the public service commission based
on that county's percentage of the total number of local
exchange telephone access lines and line equivalents in service in the state. The public service commission shall recalculate
the county disbursement percentages on a yearly basis, with the
changes effective on the first day of July, and using data as of
the preceding first day of March. The public utilities which
normally provide local exchange telecommunications service by
means of lines, wires, cables, optical fibers or by other means
extended to subscriber premises shall supply the data to the
public service commission on a county specific basis no later
than the first day of June of each year;
(2) Counties which have an enhanced 911 ordinance in effect
shall receive their share of the wireless enhanced 911 fee
revenue for use in the same manner as the enhanced 911 fee
revenues received by those counties pursuant to their enhanced
911 ordinances;
(3) The public service commission shall deposit the wireless
enhanced 911 fee revenue for each county which does not have an
enhanced 911 ordinance in effect into an escrow account which it
has established for that county. Any county with an escrow
account may, immediately upon adopting an enhanced 911
ordinance, receive the moneys which have accumulated in the
escrow account for use as specified in subdivision (2),
subsection (d) of this section: Provided, That a county that
adopts a 911 ordinance after the effective date of this section or has adopted a 911 ordinance within five years of the
effective date of this section shall continue to receive one
percent of the 911 fee revenue for a period of five years
following the adoption of the ordinance and thereafter shall
receive that county's portion of the fee revenue being disbursed
to counties on a pro rata basis:
Provided, however, That every
five years from the year one thousand nine hundred ninety-seven,
all fee revenue residing in escrow accounts shall be disbursed
on the pro rata basis specified in subdivision (1), subsection
(d) of this section, except that data for counties without
enhanced 911 ordinances in effect shall be omitted from the
calculation and all escrow accounts shall begin again with a
zero balance.
(e) CMRS providers have the same rights and responsibilities
as other telephone service suppliers in dealing with the failure
by a subscriber of a CMRS provider to timely pay the wireless
enhanced 911 fee.
(f) Notwithstanding the provisions of section one-a of this
article, for the purposes of this section, the term "county"
means one of the counties provided for in section one, article
one, chapter one of this code.
(g) From any funds distributed to a county pursuant to this
section, a total of three percent quarter quarterly shall be set aside in a special fund to be used exclusively for the purchase
of equipment that will provide information regarding the x and
y coordinates of persons who call an emergency telephone system
through a commercial mobile radio service:
Provided, That upon
purchase of the necessary equipment, the special fund shall be
dissolved and any surplus shall be used for general operation of
the emergency telephone system as may otherwise be provided by
law.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to prohibit wireless
enhanced 911 fee increases without legislative approval.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken
from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language
that would be added.
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