911 enterprise board previews 3-cent surcharge to fund resource center, GIS, multilingual alerts and related projects

The 911 Services Enterprise Board met June 18 and discussed funding priorities for a newly created enterprise, tentatively framing a first-year budget around a proposed 3¢ increase to the 9-1-1 surcharge to seed a resource center, GIS and dispatch mapping projects, multilingual alerting support and other technology needs.

The board’s discussion followed a public comment from Zubin Bastani, founder and president of ReachWell, who introduced his company’s multilingual emergency notification services and said ReachWell “ties directly into National Weather Service feeds and as well as IPAWS feeds.” Bastani told the board ReachWell already supports about 13 Colorado counties and said his analysis identified roughly “22 counties that are unsupported” for language access under the new bill he cited.

Board members said they want to start with broad budget “buckets” and refine numbers before a formal vote. “I think 3¢ is reasonable,” Board member Amy said during the conversation, adding an approximate conversion: “That's what, 2,400,000… something like that, ish.” Board members agreed to come to the next meeting with priority lists and tasked a small group to assemble a draft gross budget based on the 3¢ parameter for detailed review and possible vote at the following meeting.

Why this matters: the state recently passed language-access…