Authorizes towns to adopt, amend or repeal local laws to impose a surcharge per telephone line per month on the customers of every service supplier within such town to pay for the costs associated with obtaining, operating and maintaining an enhanced 911 emergency telephone system to serve such town.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
9832
IN ASSEMBLY
April 11, 2024
___________
Introduced by M. of A. ZEBROWSKI -- read once and referred to the
Committee on Local Governments
AN ACT to amend the town law and the tax law, in relation to the imposi-
tion of an emergency telephone system surcharge for service within
towns
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. The town law is amended by adding a new article 10-A to
2 read as follows:
3 ARTICLE 10-A
4 ENHANCED EMERGENCY TELEPHONE SYSTEM SURCHARGE
5 Section 160. Legislative findings and declaration of intent.
6 161. Definitions.
7 162. Application of article.
8 163. Establishment of surcharge for system costs.
9 164. Application; limitations; exemptions.
10 165. Collection of surcharge.
11 166. Liability for surcharge.
12 167. System revenues; adjustment of surcharge.
13 168. Miscellaneous provisions.
14 § 160. Legislative findings and declaration of intent. The legislature
15 recognizes the paramount importance of the health, safety and welfare of
16 the citizens of the state and further recognizes that when the lives or
17 property of its citizens are in imminent danger that timely and appro-
18 priate assistance must be rendered. The legislature recognizes further
19 that such assistance is almost always summoned by telephone and that a
20 multiplicity of emergency telephone numbers exist within any one town
21 and that unintentional, though avoidable, delays in reaching appropriate
22 emergency aid can and do occur to the detriment and jeopardy of life and
23 property.
24 The legislature acknowledges that the three digit number, 911, is a
25 nationally recognized and applied telephone number which may be used to
26 summon emergency aid and to eliminate delays caused by lack of familiar-
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD14140-01-4
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1 ity with emergency numbers and by understandable confusion in circum-
2 stances of crisis.
3 The legislature finds that the enhanced emergency telephone service
4 known as E911 provides substantial benefits beyond basic 911 systems
5 through the provision of selective routing and automatic number and
6 location identification and that these enhancements not only signif-
7 icantly reduce the response time of emergency services but also repre-
8 sent the state of the art in fail-safe emergency telephone system tech-
9 nology.
10 The legislature further finds that a major obstacle to the establish-
11 ment of an E911 system in the various towns within the state is the cost
12 of the telecommunication equipment and services which are necessary to
13 provide such system.
14 The legislature further finds and declares that, by the enactment of
15 the provisions of this article, it is the intent of the legislature to
16 fulfill its obligation to provide for the health, safety and welfare of
17 the people of this state by providing towns within the state with a
18 funding mechanism to assist in the payment of the costs associated with
19 establishing and maintaining an E911 system and thereby considerably
20 increase the potential for providing all citizens of this state with the
21 valuable services inherent in an E911 system.
22 § 161. Definitions. When used in this article, the following words and
23 phrases shall have the following meanings unless the specific context
24 clearly indicates otherwise:
25 1. "Municipality" means any town that maintains an E911 system except
26 a town wholly contained within a city.
27 2. "Board" means the board of supervisors of a town or an elected town
28 legislative body.
29 3. "E911 system" means an enhanced emergency telephone service which
30 automatically connects a person dialing the digits 9-1-1 to an estab-
31 lished public service answering point and which shall include, but not
32 be limited to, selective routing, automatic number identification and
33 automatic location identification.
34 4. "911 service area" means the area within the geographic boundaries
35 of a town which has established an E911 system.
36 5. "Public safety agency" means a functional division of a public
37 agency which provides or has the authority to provide police, firefight-
38 ing, emergency medical or ambulance services or other emergency services
39 or a private entity which provides emergency medical or ambulance
40 services.
41 6. "Public service answering point" means a communications facility
42 which first receives 911 calls from persons within a 911 service area
43 and which may, as appropriate, directly dispatch the services of a
44 public safety agency or extend, transfer, relay or otherwise route 911
45 calls to the appropriate public safety agency.
46 7. "Service supplier" means (i) a telephone corporation which provides
47 local exchange access service within a 911 service area, or (ii) a
48 provider of "voice over internet protocol service" or "VOIP service"
49 that provides such service within a 911 service area.
50 8. "System costs" means the costs associated with obtaining and main-
51 taining the telecommunication equipment, all operations and maintenance
52 costs and the telephone services costs necessary to establish and
53 provide an E911 system.
54 9. "Wireless communications device" means any equipment used to access
55 a wireless communications service.
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1 10. "Wireless communications service" means all commercial mobile
2 services, as that term is defined in section 332(d) of title 47, United
3 States Code, as amended from time to time, including, but not limited
4 to, all broadband personal communications services, wireless radio tele-
5 phone services, geographic area specialized and enhanced specialized
6 mobile radio services, and incumbent-wide area specialized mobile radio
7 licensees, which offer real time, two-way voice or data service that is
8 interconnected with the public switched telephone network or otherwise
9 provides access to emergency communications services.
10 11. "Place of primary use" shall mean the street address represen-
11 tative of where a wireless communications customer's use of the wireless
12 telecommunications service primarily occurs, and must be: (i) the resi-
13 dential street address or the primary business street address of the
14 wireless communications customer and (ii) within the licensed service
15 area of the wireless communications service supplier.
16 12. "Wireless communications service supplier" means any commercial
17 entity that operates a wireless communications service in New York
18 state.
19 13. "Voice over internet protocol service" or "VOIP service" shall
20 mean any service that (i) enables real-time, two-way voice communi-
21 cations; (ii) requires a broadband connection from the user's location;
22 (iii) requires internet protocol compatible customer premises equipment
23 (CPE); and (iv) permits users generally to receive calls that originate
24 on the public switched telephone network and to terminate calls to the
25 public switched telephone network.
26 § 162. Application of article. This article shall apply to every town
27 except a town wholly contained within a city.
28 § 163. Establishment of surcharge for system costs. 1. Notwithstand-
29 ing the provisions of any law to the contrary, any municipality of this
30 state, acting through its board, is hereby authorized and empowered to
31 adopt, amend or repeal local laws to impose a surcharge in an amount not
32 to exceed thirty-five cents per access line per month on the customers
33 of every service supplier within such municipality to pay for the costs
34 associated with obtaining, operating and maintaining the telecommuni-
35 cation equipment and telephone services needed to provide an enhanced
36 911 emergency telephone system to serve such municipality.
37 2. Any such local law shall state the amount of the surcharge, the
38 date on which the service supplier shall begin to add such surcharge to
39 the billings of its customers and, to the extent practicable, the date
40 on which such E911 service is to begin. Such local law may authorize the
41 service supplier to begin billing its customers for such surcharge prior
42 to the date the E911 system service is to begin.
43 3. Any service supplier within a municipality which has imposed a
44 surcharge pursuant to the provisions of this article shall be given a
45 minimum of forty-five days written notice prior to the date it shall
46 begin to add such surcharge to the billings of its customers or prior to
47 any modification to or change in the surcharge amount.
48 § 164. Application; limitations; exemptions. 1. The surcharge estab-
49 lished pursuant to the provisions of this article shall be imposed on a
50 per access line basis on all current bills rendered for local exchange
51 access service within the 911 service area.
52 2. Any such surcharge shall have uniform application and shall be
53 imposed throughout the entire municipality to the greatest extent possi-
54 ble in conformance with the availability of such E911 system within the
55 municipality.
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1 3. No such surcharge shall be imposed upon more than seventy-five
2 exchange access lines per customer per location.
3 4. Lifeline customers, a public safety agency and any municipality
4 which has enacted a local law pursuant to the provisions of this article
5 shall be exempt from any surcharge imposed under this article.
6 § 165. Collection of surcharge. 1. The appropriate service supplier or
7 suppliers serving a 911 service area shall act as collection agent for
8 the municipality and shall remit the funds collected as the surcharge to
9 the chief fiscal officer of the town every month. Such funds shall be
10 remitted no later than thirty days after the last business day of such
11 period.
12 2. The service supplier shall be entitled to retain as an administra-
13 tive fee an amount equal to two percent of its collections of the
14 surcharge.
15 3. The surcharge required to be collected by the service supplier
16 shall be added to and stated separately in its billings to the customer.
17 4. The service supplier shall annually provide to the municipality an
18 accounting of the surcharge amounts billed and collected.
19 § 166. Liability for surcharge. 1. Each service supplier customer who
20 is subject to the provisions of this article shall be liable to the
21 municipality for the surcharge until it has been paid to the munici-
22 pality, except that payment to a service supplier is sufficient to
23 relieve the customer from further liability for such surcharge.
24 2. The service supplier shall have no obligation to take any legal
25 action to enforce the collection of any surcharge. However, whenever the
26 service supplier remits the funds collected as the surcharge to the
27 town, it shall also provide the town with the name and address of any
28 customer refusing or failing to pay the surcharge imposed by this arti-
29 cle and shall state the amount of such surcharge remaining unpaid.
30 § 167. System revenues; adjustment of surcharge. All surcharge monies
31 remitted to the municipality by a service supplier and all other monies
32 dedicated to the payment of system costs from whatever source derived or
33 received by the municipality shall be expended only upon authorization
34 of the board and only for payment of system costs as permitted by this
35 article. The municipality shall separately account for and keep adequate
36 books and records of the amount and source of all such revenues and of
37 the amount and object or purpose of all expenditures thereof. If at the
38 end of any fiscal year the total amount of all such revenues exceeds the
39 amount necessary for payment of system costs in such fiscal year, such
40 excess shall be reserved and carried over for the payment of system
41 costs in the following fiscal year. However, if at the end of any fiscal
42 year such E911 reserved fund balance exceeds an amount equal to five
43 percent of that necessary for the payment of system costs in such fiscal
44 year, the board shall by local law reduce the surcharge for the follow-
45 ing fiscal year to a level which more adequately reflects the system
46 cost requirements of its E911 system. The board may also by local law
47 reestablish or increase such surcharge, subject to the provisions of
48 section one hundred sixty-three of this article, if the revenues gener-
49 ated by such surcharge and by any other source are not adequate to pay
50 for system costs.
51 § 168. Miscellaneous provisions. 1. At least one public service
52 answering point within and serving the 911 service area of a munici-
53 pality which has enacted a local law or resolution pursuant to the
54 provisions of this article shall be operated on a twenty-four hour
55 basis.
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1 2. The board may also apply for and accept federal monies and may
2 accept contributions and donations from any source for the purpose of
3 funding an E911 emergency telephone system.
4 3. Nothing contained in this article shall require the imposition of a
5 surcharge by a municipality which has established or plans to establish
6 an E911 system to serve such municipality nor preclude other means of
7 funding all or part of an E911 system nor require the operation or
8 establishment of such system by any municipality.
9 4. Records, in whatever form they may be kept, of calls made to a
10 municipality's E911 system shall not be made available to or obtained by
11 any entity or person, other than that municipality's public safety agen-
12 cy, another government agency or body, or a private entity or a person
13 providing medical, ambulance or other emergency services, and shall not
14 be utilized for any commercial purpose other than the provision of emer-
15 gency services.
16 § 2. Subdivision 9 of section 186-a of the tax law, as amended by
17 chapter 757 of the laws of 1989, is amended to read as follows:
18 9. Notwithstanding any other provision contained in this chapter or
19 any other law, any surcharge collected or any administrative fee
20 retained by any telephone corporation acting as collection agent for a
21 municipality pursuant to the provisions of article six of the county law
22 or of article ten-A of the town law shall not be considered as nor
23 included in the determination of gross income or gross operating income
24 of or by such corporation.
25 § 3. This act shall take effect immediately.
