[Adopted 1-3-1991 by L.L. No. 1-1991]
A.
The Board of Supervisors recognizes the paramount importance of the
health, safety and welfare of the residents of the County and that
when the lives or property of its residents is in imminent danger
that timely and appropriate assistance must be rendered. The Board
has determined that the enhanced emergency telephone system known
as "E911" provides substantial benefits beyond basic 911 systems through
the provision of selective routing and automatic number and location
identification and that these enhancements not only significantly
reduce the response time of emergency services but also represent
the state of the art in fail-safe emergency telephone system technology,
and has entered into an agreement with New York Telephone Company
for such service.
B.
The New York State Legislature has recognized that the cost of implementing,
maintaining and upgrading an E911 system is costly and has adopted
Chapters 756 and 757 of the Laws of 1989 amending the County Law and
the Tax Law to provide counties with a funding mechanism to assist
in the payment of the costs associated with establishing and maintaining
an E911 system.[1] It is the intent of the Board of Supervisors to fulfill
its obligation to provide for the health, safety and welfare of the
residents of Saratoga County by adopting this article imposing a surcharge
on the customers of every telephone service supplier within the County
to pay for the costs associated with obtaining and maintaining telecommunication
equipment and telephone services needed to provide and maintain an
enhanced 911 emergency telephone system to serve Saratoga County.
[1]
Editor's Note: See County Law § 300 et seq. and
Tax Law § 186-a.
The County of Saratoga hereby adopts the applicable provisions
of Article 6 of the County Law as they pertain to the County and its
emergency telephone system and hereby imposes a surcharge in an amount
of $0.35 per access line, per month, on the customers of every telephone
service supplier within the County of Saratoga to pay for the costs
associated with obtaining and maintaining the telecommunication equipment
and telephone services needed to provide an enhanced 911 emergency
telephone system to serve Saratoga County.
All words and phrases used in this article shall have the same
meaning as defined in Article 6 of the County Law and as specifically
defined in this article as follows:
An enhanced emergency telephone service which automatically
connects a person dialing the digits 9-1-1 to an established public
service answering point and which shall include, but not be limited
to, selective routing, automatic number identification and automatic
location identification.
The area within the geographic boundaries of Saratoga County.
[Amended 1-19-2010 by L.L. No. 1-2010]
Any service that:
[Added 1-19-2010 by L.L.
No. 1-2010]
Enables real-time, two-way voice communications;
Requires a broadband connection from the user's location;
Requires Internet protocol compatible customer premises equipment
(CPE); and
Permits users generally to receive calls that originate on the
public switched telephone network and to terminate calls to the public
switched telephone network.
[Amended 1-19-2010 by L.L. No. 1-2010]
All telephone service suppliers which provide local exchange
access service within the 911 service area shall impose and add such
surcharge to the billing of their customers commencing March 1, 1991.
All providers of voice over Internet protocol service which provide
such service with the 911 area shall impose and add such surcharge
to the billing of its customers commencing March 1, 2010.
A.
The surcharge established pursuant to this article and Article 6
of the County Law shall be imposed on a per-access-line basis on all
current bills rendered for local exchange access service within the
911 service area.
B.
No surcharge shall be imposed upon more than 75 exchange access lines
per customer per location.
C.
Lifeline customers and Saratoga County shall be exempt from the surcharge
imposed under this article.
A.
The appropriate service supplier or suppliers serving the 911 service
area shall act as collection agents for the County and shall remit
the funds collected as the surcharge to the Saratoga County Treasurer
every month. Such funds shall be remitted no later than 30 days after
the last business day of such period.
B.
The service supplier shall be entitled to retain as an administrative
fee an amount equal to 2% of its collections of the surcharge.
C.
The surcharge required to be collected by the service supplier shall
be added to and stated separately in its billings to the customer.
D.
The service supplier shall annually provide to the County an accounting
of the surcharge amounts billed and collected.
A.
Each service supplier customer who is subject to the provisions of
this article shall be liable to the County for the surcharge until
it has been paid to the County, except that payment to a service supplier
is sufficient to relieve the customer from further liability for such
surcharge.
B.
The service supplier shall have no obligation to take any legal action
to enforce the collection of any surcharge. However, whenever the
service supplier remits the funds collected as the surcharge to the
County, it shall also provide the County with the name and address
of any customer refusing or failing to pay the surcharge imposed by
this article and shall state the amount of such surcharge remaining
unpaid.
All surcharge monies remitted to the County by a service supplier
and all other monies dedicated to the payment of system costs from
whatever source derived or received by the County shall be expended
only upon authorization of the Board of Supervisors and only for payment
of system costs as permitted by Article 6 of the County Law. The County
shall separately account for, and keep adequate books and records
of, the amount and source of all such revenues and of the amount and
object or purpose of all expenditures thereof. If at the end of any
fiscal year the total amount of all such revenues exceeds the amount
necessary and expended for payment of system costs in such fiscal
year, such unencumbered cash surplus shall be carried over for the
payment of system costs in the following fiscal year. However, if
at the end of any fiscal year such unencumbered cash surplus exceeds
an amount equal to 5% of that necessary for the payment of system
costs in such fiscal year, the Board of Supervisors shall, by local
law, reduce the surcharge for the following fiscal year to a level
which more adequately reflects the system cost requirements of its
E911 system. The Board may also, by local law, reestablish or increase
such surcharge, subject to the provisions of Article 6 of the County
Law and this article, if the revenues generated by such surcharge
and by any other source are not adequate to pay for system costs.
