Commissioners direct staff to send letters opposing several state bills and a VIPER user fee

The Brunswick County Board of Commissioners voted on April 21 to send two letters to members of the General Assembly and legislative leadership raising concerns about several pending state bills and a proposed user fee for the statewide VIPER radio system.

Commissioners asked staff to draft and deliver: (1) a letter addressing House Bill 675 and House Bill 219 (both of which the county identified as potentially imposing new certification mandates and removing locally issued EMS franchise agreements), and (2) a letter addressing Senate Bill 257 (language within a larger appropriations bill that would alter emergency-response authority and involve the National Guard) plus VIPER radio fee provisions that would assess an annual $25 fee per radio.

County staff and department directors briefed the board on implications. Kathy Litch, health and human services director, and David McIntyre, emergency management director, described operational and training impacts they expect if HB 675 becomes law: the bill, as discussed at the meeting, would favor national certifications over current state certifications and could require extensive retraining for some staff — in one staff estimate, more than 1,000 hours of additional training for personnel whose certification dates reach back 10 years. On HB 219, staff flagged the loss of franchise agreements as a potential source of fragmentation in local EMS coordination.

On Senate Bill 257, staff and commissioners raised questions about shifting emergency-response activation or control to an adjutant general and the National Guard, asking how that change would interact with established county emergency management responsibilities and with pre-storm preparedness actions that counties take before any formal declaration.

Commissioners and staff also discussed a provision creating an annual $25 user fee for each radio on the statewide VIPER system; county staff said the county has about 3,047 radios on the system and that, if the fee applied per radio, the county's annual cost would exceed $76,000. Commissioners expressed concern that a recurring per-radio fee would become an ongoing cost that local governments and public-safety agencies would shoulder.

The board voted to send the two letters to the county's legislative delegation, to the chairs of the relevant committees and to leadership in both chambers, and directed staff to include the county association in outreach. The board requested that staff deliver the letters promptly so they could reach lawmakers while the bills remained active in committee.