By DAVE HAMRICK
dhamrick@thecitizennews.com

More Fayette County residents may soon be paying an additional $1 to $1.50 per month per phone on their wireless phone bills.

Governments in Peachtree City, Fayetteville, Tyrone and Brooks all will be asked to consider charging the tax for emergency 911 service that is currently affecting only cellular phone customers in unincorporated areas of the county.

In fact, it's mainly due to an oversight that city residents aren't already being charged the E-911 fee for each cell phone, said county manager Billy Beckett.

Fayette's government began levying the fees last year to help pay for new equipment that's mandated by the federal government, Beckett reminded municipal leaders last week.

The equipment, which will enable emergency operators to pinpoint the location of anyone calling 911 from a cell phone, should already have been installed, he said.

“We are behind the eight ball on this thing,” he told members of the county FUTURE committee last week. FUTURE (Fayette United Team to Use Resources Effectively), composed of mayors, city managers, the county manager and County Commission chairman, meets periodically to discuss ways the county and cities can cooperate to improve service and reduce costs.

“We're not interested in skinning people,” said Beckett, acknowledging that numerous county residents have complained about the mounting number of fees attached to phone lines and cell phone service. “But this is something that potentially could save a number of lives.”

People calling 911 from cell phones often don't know where they are because they're from out of town, or they can't communicate for one reason or another, he said.

“I was driving home from a soccer match the other day, and thought that I was having a heart attack,” he related. “I knew where I was, but there was no way I could have communicated that to a dispatcher,” he said.

But in order to raise the approximately $200,000 needed to install the new equipment, cities need to levy the fee on their residents so those dollars can be added to the ones being collected by the county, Beckett said.

The E-911 center is jointly supported by the cities and county, and dispatches all emergency services within the county.