OKLAHOMA CITY – Latimer County and its 11,000 southeastern Oklahoma residents found themselves in dire straits several months ago. There was no operational 9-1-1 emergency system.

As County Commissioner Roy Alford explained to state senators Thursday, the three-phone system went down at a time when county coffers were all but empty. Officials eventually were able to switch to LeFlore County, transmitting calls by cellphone.

“To me, this was unacceptable,” Alford said.

Alford told the Senate Public Safety Committee that just replacing the phones would have cost $7,800, which the small county could not afford. He said officials approached businesses for assistance, eventually securing enough money.

“There’s no way to keep it up and running without a fee increase,” he said.

Alford, president of the Association of County Commissioners of Oklahoma, said the county would be happy to give a wireless company the 9-1-1 fees it collects if it would operate the system.

He said one company wanted $133,000 to replace the county system, a cost that was out of the question.

If some type of grant program could be developed to assist financially strapped rural counties, that would help, Alford said.

“We need help in the rural areas,” he told the panel.

The committee is studying the 9-1-1 program, its efficiency and whether fees should be uniform across the state, among other issues.

Alford said the 9-1-1 fee for his own landline is $2.23, or 15 percent of the base rate, but the fee for four cellphone lines is only $2.

Legislation that would have allowed counties to increase 9-1-1 fees passed the Senate but died in the House this year.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Schulz, R-Altus, requested one of two studies on the issue. Thursday’s meeting was chiefly about funding and how to establish 9-1-1 fees.

“We have a lot of different entities providing 911 service in the state of Oklahoma,” Schulz said. “For lots of different reasons, some of those are doing a really great job. Some are struggling. ”

He said the study is intended to look at the state system as a whole with an eye toward improvement. The goal, Schulz said, is to make sure that no matter where a person calls 9-1-1 from, he or she receives a base level of service.

Speaking after the meeting, Schulz said he was not surprised to learn that funding data and other figures seem to be hard to come by.

“We have no mandate that anybody reports to a state group or a state clearinghouse,” he said. “No, I wasn’t overly surprised that the revenue information is as hopscotch as the service. ”

Darita Huckabee is legislative and legal affairs coordinator for the Indian Nations Council of Governments and a member of a state task force on 9-1-1 funding. She said the task force hopes to develop data and reach a consensus on recommendations for appropriate fees.

Huckabee said her group has garnered some incomplete data through a survey of Oklahoma Public Safety Answering Points that has uncovered some challenges in the effort to ensure that the entire state has adequate 9-1-1 service.

The downturn in landlines as more people turn to cellphones is a key factor, she said.

“It’s not just a local issue,” Huckabee said. “What we’re seeing is a serious reduction in revenue. Wireless fees are dropping. Wireless income is not making up the difference. ”

Huckabee said that appears to be true across the state.

“There’s no state level of coordination,” she told the committee, citing a marked lack of reporting that makes developing solid data a problem.

But Huckabee shared some information culled from the 44 PSAPs that responded to the survey, about 30 percent of total PSAPs in the state, acknowledging that is it not complete enough to be used in setting 9-1-1 fees. She also said officials are not able to report data on 9-1-1 calls and fee revenue to the Federal Communications Commission.

On a per-capita basis, Huckabee said, the average wireless fee is about 30 cents per line, although the cost to deliver 9-1-1 service is about $1.76 per line. She said that includes only post-paid cellphone lines, not landlines or prepaid cellphones.

“That’s what’s being experienced at the local level,” Huckabee said.

She said the task force hopes to have better data early next month.

“It’s our goal to say how much of a fee increase would be justified,” Huckabee said.

Beth Cooley, director of state legislative affairs with the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, said that a statewide 9-1-1 charge of 50 cents is imposed on cellphone consumers, while landline fees, imposed locally, range from 3 percent to 15 percent of base rates.

“The wireless industry believes that the Legislature should set the rate of the uniform, statewide 9-1-1 fee,” Cooley said.

She said the industry also encourages lawmakers to identify revenue currently being collected before raising fees.

Scott Mackey, managing partner with KSE Partners, a government affairs consulting firm in Virginia, said that wireless fees vary widely among the states, ranging up to $3 per line in West Virginia, with a median per line, per month of 75 cents. He said that Oklahoma ranks on the lower end of the fee scale.