Roanoke Rapids City Council Tuesday rejected an amended Halifax County 911 Center funding proposal which commissioners approved last week.
The issue passed by a 3-2 margin at the special council meeting called to address the matter. Council members Sandra Bryant and Carl Ferebee voted against rejecting the amended proposal while Wayne Smith, who moved to reject it, and Suetta Scarbrough and Ernest Bobbitt voted in the affirmative.
Smith likened the agreement to a 2 ½ cent tax increase on city residents plus the fees they already pay for 911 service on their phone bills. “If you live outside the city then there’s no additional fee that the county people have to pay. The city would end up paying roughly 2 ½ cents from the tax we collect. We would have to charge the residents to get our budget to the way it should, adding 2 ½ cents to our tax base to make the budget work out.”
The rejection of the proposal does not mean the city will be without 911 service in the upcoming fiscal year, which begins Thursday. Instead, the city will have to pay $352,497 which is the amount calculated it would owe before the county changed interlocal agreement — once at its June 7 meeting and then last week after Roanoke Rapids rejected the original change to the agreement.
Asked by council members what recourse the city would have in light of rejecting the latest proposal, City Attorney Geoffrey Davis said, “We have other legal options.”
He said those options would have to be initially discussed in a closed session before bringing them into an open meeting setting.
“That would be a last resort,” Mayor Emery Doughtie said of the legal options. “I would like to see us continue negotiations.”
The amended agreement council rejected Tuesday addressed shortfalls and overages for the cost of 911 personnel in a given fiscal year.
That amendment stated if there is a shortfall of budgeted revenues for the cost of personnel in a given fiscal year the municipalities would be required to remit additional funding to cover the deficit.
If there is a surplus, then the county would remit the overage back to the municipal governments.
The same percentages used to determine the initial level of funding will apply to the shortfalls and overages, the amendment says.
The original change by the county was based on only charging municipalities for police calls and, the county said, would have represented a savings of slightly more than $71,000 for Roanoke Rapids.
“I think we have to look at the savings in here,” Ferebee said. “If we don’t, it will cost us more in the long run.”
Bryant said based on discussions council had at its last meeting, the one where council rejected the original change in the agreement, it was her understanding the city was looking for an agreement based on actual personnel costs of the 911 center.
She said she was in favor of that part. Where she differed was a clause contained in both the original change to the agreement as well as the amended one which says if the city wanted to get out of the agreement in a few years it could only do so by a county-wide referendum authorizing a tax increase to cover the costs of operating the center. The city would have to pay for the referendum.
Earlier in the discussion Bryant said, “If we don’t accept this, if we pay ($352,497), it would definitely be more.”
Halifax County Board of Commissioners Chairman Vernon Bryant said this morning, “I feel that we are very disappointed that they didn’t accept the amended agreement. It would have helped all the municipalities.”
Chairman Bryant said with the changes the county will end up paying more. “We understand municipalities face shortfalls. In this last one we would still pick up the cost.”
As far as further discussions on the matter with the city, he said, “I really don’t have an answer. I am confident the county manager and the county attorney will bring it to the board’s attention. Whether the commissioners will discuss it further I’m not sure. I feel we’re almost to the point our cup runneth over. We’ve really tried to work this thing out. I don’t know what the commissioners will do. I’m just extremely disappointed.”
