How Much E-911 Money Actually Going Towards 911 Services?

from the not-much-at-all dept

Mon, May 10th 2004 2:51am — Mike Masnick

This isn't a particularly new story. In fact, over a year ago, we first mentioned that much of the money in New York designated on phone bills to go towards E-911 service was actually going towards things like winter boots. Now, the NY Times has picked up on the story and notes that only $30 million of the $440 million people thought they were paying for a modern 911 service has actually gone to that purpose. While many areas still are not prepared for the new system, the state insists that E-911 systems will be up and running by the year's end. Of course, the problem isn't just that E-911 systems aren't ready, but that people were told they were paying this fee for 911 systems. If the money was supposed to be going for winter boots, why didn't they add a "winter boots" fee line to mobile phone bills?

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

2 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Oliver Wendell Jones, 10 May 2004 @ 8:10am

Rings a bell?
Way, way back in the early days of the world wide web, the company that was responsible for registration of URLs was charging something obscene like $175 or more per year, a significant portion of which was going into an "internet" fund that noone knew what they were supposed to do with. Then suddenly someone raised a stink about it and they were forced to refund the money to the people who had paid it.

It sounds to me like we as Americans have paid our E911 fees and if there is money left over to buy boots, etc., then its time to sunset this "tax" and put an end to it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 10 May 2004 @ 9:59am

Re: Rings a bell?
What, a tax not used for its intended purpose! Next thing you'll tell me is that gas taxes aren't being used to build highways, social securities taxes aren't being put in a trust fund but spent right away, and that cigarette taxes aren't being used to stop smoking. Or that "temporary" taxes are kept permanently, that taxes on the "rich" end up hitting nearly everyone...

There are a lot of things to complain about on taxes, so it's interesting how some people are always for raising and expanding them.
[ link to this | view in thread ]