Sheriffs, counties urge funding, law changes to replace aging 9-1-1 infrastructure

County and sheriff officials told the Senate Judiciary and Rules Committee that Idaho's 9-1-1 and radio communications infrastructure is aging, has produced service failures and needs a multi-year funding plan to migrate to Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG911).

"This is legacy dying infrastructure, analog infrastructure that has to be replaced," said Sheriff Sam Holst, president of the Idaho Sheriff's Association, describing central recorder trunks and selective routers that still carry most calls. Holst said calls routed through those legacy trunks provide less precise location information than modern services and that some counties remain unprepared for NG911.

Sheriff Andy Creech, legislative chairman for the Idaho Sheriff's Association, recounted documented failures in recent months: a Valley County parent called 9-1-1 seven times while a baby had difficulty breathing and location information did not attach to the call; a planned switch update in Boise West left a 9-1-1 switch down for nine minutes in August 2024, rendering 10 counties unable to place 9-1-1 calls for the outage period; and in one county a single trunk outage leaves only one working 9-1-1 line for the entire county.

Officials said other problems include calls routed to out-of-state centers that are then transferred back to Idaho with location data stripped. A Payette County example described a pharmacy call that initially reached Canada and had to be routed back before responders could be dispatched. County officials also noted that 90% of 9-1-1 calls are from cell phones and that the legacy system was designed for landlines.

Speakers described estimated costs and potential funding mechanisms. Officials said a full program that included radio and phone infrastructure fixes had previously been estimated near $22 million annually; focusing on phone/core NG911 services alone produced estimates roughly in the $14 million range. Speakers said the current statutory fee structure — a $1 fee established in 1988 and a 25¢ grant fee option adopted later — is outdated and that two populous counties (Bonneville and Ada) were not participating in the state grant fund. Officials described a possible fee increase scenario from 25¢ to 65¢ per line that, with full participation, could fund deployment of NG911 core services; a larger increase could fund radio infrastructure as well.

Kelly Brasfield, policy advisor for the Idaho Association of Counties, said the association plans legislation this year to streamline fee payments and keep the issue in front of lawmakers; she said five legislators have requested that JLOC study the issue and produce recommendations for next session.

Sheriffs urged that any NG911 deployment use I3 standards so multiple vendors and systems can interoperate and emphasized the need to clean up GIS addressing data before migration. No committee vote took place during the presentation; sponsors and associations said they would return with model legislation and asked the legislature to study and identify funding options.

"Time is of the essence," Sheriff Creech told the committee. "We are already experiencing failures, and we don't have clarity in those failures."