After learning that the increase - about $1 per telephone line per year - already was in place, the County Council on Tuesday ordered that the extra revenue be put in an account until the issue is resolved.
"What?" Councilman Russell Skousen said after being told the hike had started July 1. "That's outrageous."
Valley Emergency Communications Center (VECC) sent a letter to the Utah Tax Commission on April 30 authorizing the increase for all of its member communities. But the issue was never brought to the County Council until two weeks ago - and the council promptly declined to raise the fee.
"Our 200,000 residents are paying this increase and by law it never should have happened," said Councilman Joe Hatch.
Hold it, says VECC Executive Director Terry Ingram.
The county and cities have a contract with VECC that gives the center the power to set the 911 surcharge, Ingram says, and the contract says the same fee will be collected from every jurisdiction. Ingram says every VECC member, except the county, has approved the tax.
Hiking the 911 fee is necessary, Ingram says, to buy equipment that gives dispatchers the ability to locate a cellular-phone caller. He calls it a significant safety issue and notes that VECC's board did what was in the public's best interest.
"The board was acting very responsibly in what they did," Ingram said.
But there are questions as to how valid the VECC contract is with the county, since one government, by law, cannot bind another to hike fees or taxes.
Barry Conover, the Tax Commission's deputy executive director, said the question of authorizing the fee increase is between the county and VECC.
"The Tax Commission is not in the middle of this issue," Conover said. To stop the fee now probably would take two months to give phone providers enough time to change the tax rate, he says.
Ingram says if the county backs off the fee boost, it could be bad for VECC. He says the center's 911 fund would lose 12 percent because it has to pay to collect the tax.
County leaders are likely to take up the issue again in two weeks.
tburr@sltrib.com
