The Leelanau County Board of Commissioners this week discussed funding options to pay for 9-1-1 emergency dispatch services next year – but seemed to agree that they may need to ask voters to approve a property tax levy in August to keep the Leelanau County 9-1-1 Dispatch Center solvent through 2009.

The subject of 9-1-1 funding was not originally on the agenda at the county board’s regular monthly executive committee meeting on Tuesday morning. But a "late addition" submitted by District No. 3 commissioner Will Bunek to consider choices for 9-1-1 funding was added as the meeting got under way.

Last month, the county board rejected a proposal to add a $3.64 surcharge to the monthly bill of each cellular phone and land line in Leelanau County through the rest of the year.

Of Michigan’s 83 counties, Leelanau County was one of just 15 that did not authorize the addition of a surcharge to phone bills to pay for local 9-1-1 operations based on a new law enacted in December 2007. On Tuesday, the Michigan Public Service Commission approved 9-1-1 surcharges in 68 counties. But in 46 of those counties, surcharges had been set at a rate lower than a previous surcharge, ranging from between 18 cents to $2.51 per month.

The $3.64 monthly surcharge proposed for Leelanau County was based on a formula provided by the state, county officials said. Two years ago, before voters approved a one-mill property tax increase to support 9-1-1- and other county operations, a surcharge imposed on phone land lines was $2.12 per month, with additional 9-1-1 funding coming from the General Fund.

Now, according to Bunek, the "choices available" to the county might include a 2009 phone surcharge of between $1.50 and $3.50 combined with the use of county General Fund money to support 9-1-1 operations, "cost cutting or collaboration" with other counties, a millage, or a "per household fee."

Bunek said he would not propose funding 9-1-1 entirely through a surcharge, but that a lower surcharge than the one proposed last month might be combined with other funding sources. He also suggested that the "Dispatch" portion of the county’s $900,000 budget for the 9-1-1 Dispatch Center could come out of the county’s General Fund.

Other commissioners disagreed, however. County board chairman and District No. 6 commissioner Robert Hawley said a surcharge was unfair. His sentiments were echoed by District No. 1 commissioner Jean Watkoski, who said she’d received more calls from constituents against the surcharge than on any other issue.

Watkoski said it would be important for the county board to carefully scrutinize the 9-1-1 budget in the coming months and press state legislators to come up with a better funding formula for Leelanau County.

District No. 5 commissioner David "Chauncey" Shiflett believed his constituents would support a "per household fee" for 9-1-1 services, similar to the "per houshold fee" enacted for county recycling services. Shiflett acknowledged that the recycling fee legislation was flawed, but that legislators and county officials had since learned how to avoid legal pitfalls embedded in such legislation.

District No. 7 commissioner Melinda Lautner said she believed that budget cuts and collaboration with neighboring communities might be the best alternative for 9-1-1. She noted that Leelanau County has a "state-of-the-art" system – and is paying far too much for it.

The director of the Leelanau County Office of Emergency Management/9-1-1, Tom Skowronski, said that only eight percent of his roughly $900,000 annual budget was "discretionary." He said that 92 percent of his budget was "fixed" by requirements to pay employees and operate and maintain hardware, including the 9-1-1 facility located in the Law Enforcement Center adjacent to the new Government Center in Suttons Bay Township.

Skowronski added that he did not feel it is his responsibility to reach out to political leaders in other municipalities to convince them to collaborate with Leelanau County, nor is it his responsibility to lobby legislators in Lansing to enact new legislation that will benefit Leelanau County.

"My job is to manage day-to-day operations," Skowronski said, "It’s not my job to operate at the political level."

County administrator David Gill said he had already taken some actions toward collaborating with other counties and was looking into what state legislators might do to help.

"The instant problem is funding for 9-1-1 for next year," Gill told the county board. "New legislation and collaboration with other counties will take time. But I will bring a resolution for the boards’s consideration at its next meeting, calling for a vote on the August ballot for a .4-mill levy. I don’t know of any other options right now for 9-1-1," Gill said.