If you take a look at your cell
phone bill you will see a $1.20 line item called the “New York Public Safety
Communications Surcharge”. Originally appearing as an E911 tax, it was put into
place in the 1990s – at $0.70 per month – to provide the state with money to
upgrade 911 call centers and public safety communications systems.
By intent, it was a worthwhile tax
as emergency dispatchers needed to keep up with the explosive development of
wireless phone technology. Plus, as we unfortunately saw during the horrific events
of 9/11, interoperability of two-way devices for police officers and firemen
was a “must-have” that they didn’t have at all.
But, intent and realty are two
entirely different things, especially when it comes to government and money.
Misappropriation might be too strong
of a word (since it implies criminality), but there is likely no more accurate
term to describe the state’s ongoing misuse of this tax. Of the $14.40 that you
pay into the purported use of the tax each year, only around $5.00 goes to where
it belongs. The rest -- $9.40 – is put into the state’s general fund and spent
on anything under the sun.
At first glance, it may seem like a pittance
to some folks, but consider the growth of the cell phone industry since the tax
came to be. Cell phones of all shapes and styles are now used by what seems to
be every man, woman, and, yes, child in the Empire State. What once was a
luxury has taken on an air of necessity. The family that used to share one
landline now has wireless devices for everyone in the household. Putting that
to numbers: Last year, there were over 238 million cell phones in the United
States. In 1991, when the legislature
introduced the tax, there were only 7.5 million cell phone subscribers in the
country. That’s a lot of new sources of revenue from which our state – and
others – reap.
In recent years, New York State has collected
over $185 million annually from the tax. That number is set to grow as, one,
more smartphones and tablets are being put into circulation, and, two, the
state just put into play in December a revision to the tax that collects another
90 cents at the point of sale on pre-paid phones.
In most years, only a third to 40
percent of the funds are put to use across the state for their intended purpose.
This has been hanging out to dry local taxpayers as their municipalities
upgrade their communications system to meet today’s needs and expectations.
Case in point, consider what
happened with the new police and fire radio system that was launched in Niagara
County two years ago. It was not only necessary by federal mandate (a 9/11
aftermath), but also by actual need: If you listened to the police scanner before
everyone went digital in 2015 you heard numerous first responders struggling to
communicate with dispatch from radio dead zones throughout the county.
At a price tag of $10 million it
wasn’t a cheap investment. Of that amount, only a fifth was funded by the safety
communications tax when in theory -- and actual designation of state law -- it
should have been fully funded by the cell phone tax. The other $8 million to
cover the County’s project had to come from cash flows and borrowing of money….local
taxpayers were footing the bill.
It shouldn’t be that way. The state
isn’t playing by its own rules when it comes to the tax. It shouldn’t hold the
purse strings and pit county against county through a “competitive” grant
process for them to get back just a fraction of the amount that was collected.
By doing so, the state is tightening the thumb screws on already cash-strapped
municipalities and taxpayers while sacrificing their safety in the process.
This legislative session, the
Governor and the Legislature need to develop real strategies to keep the tax
out of the general fund. They need to do with the tax exactly what was
intended, after all, the state already digs into our phone bills at a 4 percent
clip every billing cycle. Let them have that and let us have what we deserve
and what we need.
From the 29 January 2018 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News