Due to a state funding shortfall, Schuylkill County has to draw from a reserve fund to pay for its emergency dispatch center.
The county commissioners approved a $350,000 budget adjustment at work session Wednesday to fund the Schuylkill County Communications Center for the second half of the fiscal year.
Since the Public Safety and Emergency Telephone Act in 1990, counties have used a surcharge on every landline phone to pay for its emergency communications. Before that, dispatch centers were funded by municipalities.
Surcharges on landlines can range from $1 to $1.50. Wireless customers pay a fee of $1 a month, which is collected by service providers and then sent to the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency. PEMA then distributes the funding to counties.
Paul Buber, county finance director, said the communications center budget this year included $1.9 million in funding from PEMA. However, PEMA fell about $600,000 short of that projection.
Buber said the county was able to use $350,000 from a reserve account within the communications department to pay operational costs for the second half of the fiscal year.
"I think we are OK this year, but we have to look at it carefully in the 2015 budget," Buber said.
Legislation authorizing the surcharges was extended earlier this month to June 2015. By then, state lawmakers hope to have a new way of funding dispatch centers.
In other news, the county commissioners approved a modification to the 2013 Community Development Block Grant program that canceled a project in New Philadelphia. The $18,500 allocated for the project will be used for the Port Carbon project to install American with Disabilities Act compliant curb ramps.
According to the latest county treasurer's report, the county balance took a small hit over the month. It went from $59,405,621.33 on June 14 to $55,178,547 on Wednesday.