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Missouri legislature proposes statewide funding mechanism for 911 services

An issue that has faced lawmakers and the state’s counties for about two decades might finally have been addressed, as the Missouri House on Friday completed passage of a proposed statewide way to pay for 911 services. This makes the first time such a bill has been approved by the legislature and sent to a governor.

An emotional Representative Jeanie Lauer presents a proposal for statewide funding for 911 that became the first such bill sent to a governor, after nearly two decades that the issue has been debated in Missouri. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications – click for larger version)

The issue consumed much of Representative Jeanie Lauer’s (R-Blue Springs) eight years in the House. On Friday, as she is about to leave the chamber due to term limits, she got to see her work culminate in the passage of House Bill 1456.

The heart of the issue is that most 911 services in Missouri are paid for by charges on landline phones. As fewer and fewer people have landlines, the amount of money each county receives to support local 911 has diminished, but efforts to charge the ever increasing number of cell phone users often met with too much resistance to pass. Missouri has for years been the only state that doesn’t have a statewide 911 funding mechanism.

Lauer said that’s because there are so many players involved in deciding what such a mechanism should and should not include, it took years to come up with something they – and legislators – would all support.

“We have 114 counties and 163 representatives and 30-some senators, and everybody has something different that we’re trying to address and make sure that we can accommodate in the legislation so that everybody can be safe in Missouri,” said Lauer. “It has been rather complex – a little bit like a Rubik’s Cube putting it together – but it came together and it is so, so exciting to have that done.”

The funding plan in HB 1456, Lauer hopes, will not only allow Missouri to have 911 service statewide – a handful of counties have no service at all – but will also allow counties to have the latest 911 technology. That would allow emergency responders to do things like locate cell phones when a caller can’t give his or her location, receive texts, and other upgrades and functions that many Missouri counties haven’t been able to afford.

The issue has been an emotional one for Lauer. In the eight years she’s worked on it she’s heard multiple stories of people who were in need of emergency services and their outcomes were worsened because they were in a part of Missouri where no 911 service exists, or they couldn’t be located because the 911 service hadn’t been upgraded.

“This has never been about a bill … it is about what it does,” said Lauer. “Of all the things that we’ve done here in the Capitol and that I’ve been personally involved with, this truly has significant impact on the life and wellness of people, and I couldn’t be more gratified.”

Lauer and other lawmakers have seen several 911 funding proposals fail over the years, either for lack of support or by running out of time in the final days of a session.

HB 1456 would allow counties and certain municipalities in Missouri to seek voter approval for a fee of up to $1.00 on any device that can contact 911. Areas adopting this new funding source would replace their current 911 funding source; they could not keep both.

Representatives Elaine Gannon and Glen Kolkmeyer congratulate Representative Jeanie Lauer upon passage of her 911 funding legislation. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications – click for larger version)

The bill would create a 3-percent charge on the purchase of prepaid phones, to go toward 911 funding. A portion of that money would go to 911 service in the county the phone was bought in; the rest would go to a statewide fund to support and improve 911.

The bill would also address the need for 911 facilities in many parts of the state to consolidate. Lauer said in Missouri’s 114 counties there are 185 Public Safety Answering Points, or PSAPs.

Under the bill, where consolidation is needed, voters could not be asked to approve a new funding stream unless a plan for consolidation is developed. Lauer says some locations are ready to consolidate but need the bill to be passed to make it possible.

Now that legislature has voted to send the bill to Governor Eric Greitens, Lauer is hopeful it will be signed into law.

“He has been supportive at the very beginning. I have continued to talk to his staff and they have continued to assure support, so I would certainly hope that he would find this important,” said Layer.

Greitens could sign the bill into law, veto it, or allow it to become law without his consent.

Earlier story: Term-limited House members hopes for, at long last, statewide 911 funding solution’s success

With victim’s family present, House passes bill to require reporting of sexual assaults in nursing homes

Several years ago a woman living in a Missouri nursing home died after being sexually assaulted in that home, and the identity of her attacker will likely never be known. On Friday the Missouri House completed passage of a bill aimed at keeping that from happening to anyone else.

Maribeth and David Russell of Russellville, Missouri, listen as the House passes legislation Maribeth advocated for, for five years, after her mother-in-law was victimized at a nursing home and the crime was not reported to law enforcement. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications – click for larger version)

That woman was Maribeth Russell’s mother-in-law, and Russell spent the past five years pushing for a change in Missouri law. That culminated Friday with the passage of House Bill 1635, which requires that law enforcement be notified when it is suspected that a long-term care resident 60-years of age or older has been sexually assaulted.

Russell was in the House when it gave final passage to HB 1635, 139-0.

Russell said that law enforcement was not notified by the nursing home or the hospital of the crime against her mother-in-law. The family assumed such notification was made when the Department of Health and Senior Services was contacted. By the time the family learned that was not the case, it was too late.

“Sexual assault is timely. You have to quickly jump on it to try to collect evidence and that wasn’t done, so there was never an arrest made or a prosecution made at all, and I simply wanted to prevent this from happening to others down the road,” said Russell. “Let’s change this law, let’s fill this gap that’s in the statute and prevent this from happening again.”

HB 1635 would expand Missouri law that requires abuse or neglect to be reported to the Department of Health and Senior Services. Its reporting requirement applies to in-home care providers, adult day care workers, medical and mental health care providers, medical examiners, funeral directors, and those in numerous other professions.

Representative Mike Bernskoetter (R-Jefferson City) has worked for several years, with Russell, on the language that became HB 1635. He agreed with other lawmakers that the issue was, “unsettling.”

“Especially a situation like this where somebody went through this kind of heinous act and then there was basically nothing [that] could be done about it because there was a hole in our statutes,” said Bernskoetter. “Just thinking about what could have happened to [Maribeth Russell’s] mother-in-law, it could happen to your mom or your grandma or somebody that you knew.”

Russell said the passage of HB 1635 amounts to closure for her.

Representative Mike Bernskoetter (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications – click for larger version)

“Knowing that we’re helping others down the road – people who may never know we’ve helped – but we’re trying to prevent others from having to experience what we’ve experienced here,” said Russell.

She said the nursing home and hospital that treated her mother-in-law have made it their practice to report possible sexual assaults to law enforcement, and she’s thankful for that. She wants HB 1635 to ensure that all agencies in the state are doing the same.

Bernskoetter is hopeful that, while it is unlikely, the person who attacked Russell’s mother-in-law will one day be identified. In the meantime he hopes that 1635 will be signed into law by the governor, and will prevent the same thing from happening again.

House budget committee votes to continue barring state funding for DUI checkpoints

The House Budget Committee has proposed a state spending plan that would continue to keep state-appropriated funds from going to impaired driving checkpoints.

Representative Kathie Conway (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications – click for larger version)

Last year the House proposed that $20-million made available for grants to law enforcement agencies not be allowed for use in checkpoints. That proposal became part of the final budget plan for the fiscal year that began July 1, 2017. Law enforcement agencies can conduct checkpoints but have to find other ways to pay for them.

The idea was controversial but has the backing of House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob), who cited data from the Department of Transportation showing saturation efforts – periods of increased law enforcement patrols on the roads – result in more arrests per dollar.

Representative Kathie Conway (R-St. Charles) remains adamant in her opposition to the prohibition. She proposed letting $500,000 be used on checkpoints in the Fiscal Year 2019 budget, and argued that checkpoints are effective.

“Checkpoints are not really used to catch drunk drivers and impaired drivers. They’re mostly to make the public aware of the risk of being caught,” said Conway. “There’s been ten studies reported in five separate papers that the impact of sobriety checkpoints showed relative decrease in alcohol-related crash fatalities of 9-percent, and that’s just the fatalities. Two of these studies showed a decrease of 64-percent in one and 28-percent in the other of blood alcohol content above the legal limit.”

Those who supported barring state-appropriated funds from going to checkpoints last year stood by their decision. Representative Justin Hill (R-Lake St. Louis) said what’s happened in the last year shows it was correct.

“We were pretty confident last year when we spoke about focusing this fund to methods that work and actually remove drunk drivers off the road because after all, that is the goal – to arrest drunk drivers and get them off the road to make our roads safer,” said Hill. “In the first six months, without using these funds to use checkpoints, we saw an increase of 15-percent statewide in DWI arrests, and you know some may say that’s kind of a long shot to say that’s due to the lack of checkpoints, but I truly believe that sometimes this body has to make tough decisions to force the hand to do what not only is right, but to do what’s effective and efficient.”

Representative Peter Merideth (D-St. Louis) supported the partial opening up of state funds to checkpoints. He said he believes checkpoints are effective, at least when used in conjunction with other things like saturation efforts. He also believes checkpoints are fairer.

“What I would point out is that when we rely solely on individual officers pulling over individual vehicles we have significant research and evidence that those stops much more disproportionately impact poor and minority communities, and at the very least a checkpoint is a uniform way to check everybody fairly, regardless of your color, regardless of the type of car you drive,” said Merideth.

Representative Justin Hill (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications – click for larger version)

Many backers of the prohibition on state funds being used for checkpoints say checkpoints are unconstitutional because vehicles are stopped without probable cause. Yukon Republican Robert Ross said while he supports law enforcement and knows Conway does too, he said the issue is one of due process.

“Checkpoints are a system of being guilty until you can prove yourself innocent. That’s exactly counterintuitive to the way this country was set up and how we should operate,” said Ross.

The committee rejected Conway’s amendment. If that decision stands through the completion of a budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2019, the prohibition on state-appropriated funds being used for checkpoints would continue. Conway said she would continue to try to lift it.

“I’ve stood in crowds of 200 and 300 police officers that were going out to do saturation and/or DUI checkpoints. They’re very enthusiastic about their programs. I’ve stood and talked with parents and spouses and children of people that were killed by drunk driving and they’re very supportive of DUI checkpoints; in some places it’s up to a 70-percent approval of the citizens where checkpoints are used,” said Conway. “For some it simply boils down to a constitutional issue and their minds will not be changed, but I think it’s also – since it has been found constitutional under both Missouri and United States Supreme Courts – that until that changes we have to go with the constitutionality of it, and I must say that public safety is always at the forefront of most things that I do.”

The full House, when lawmakers return from spring break next week, will debate the proposal that was passed out of the chamber’s Budget Committee. The issue could be debated again then.

Term-limited House member hopes for, at long last, statewide 911 funding solution’s success

The latest effort in a House lawmaker’s years-long quest to address 911 funding in Missouri has been sent to the state senate.

Representative Jeanie Lauer, who is in her final term in the House, has worked during most of her legislative career to create a statewide funding mechanism for 911 services. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications – click photo for larger version)

Representative Jeanie Lauer has been working for six years on a statewide way to fund 911 services. That’s because some counties in Missouri don’t have it, and many that have it don’t have the latest technology that can locate cell phones or accept emergency text and video messages. As fewer and fewer people use landlines – charges on which are one of the primary ways 911 services are paid for – counties are having more and more trouble paying for even outdated 911 service.

Lauer said the issue has long been personal for her. Each year she has heard more and more stories of people who have needed emergency help and didn’t get it in time because they were in an area with poor or no 911 service.

“It is not just a bill. This truly is something that is dealing with people’s life and their wellness, and at the end of every session it truly hits me emotionally to not have it accomplished like we would like to because I know until the next session we’re still going to lose people through death because of this situation,” said Lauer.

The issue has been around for more than a decade, predating Lauer’s legislative career. At its core is that cell phone use continues to increase but Missouri remains the only state that does not collect a fee on cell phone usage to pay for 911. Previous efforts to institute a charge on cell phones met with resistance, but Lauer thinks she has finally arrived at the solution.

House Bill 1456 would allow counties and certain municipalities in Missouri to seek voter approval for a fee of up to $1.00 on any device that can contact 911. That fee could go up to $1.50 per device with special justification and approval from the state 911 service board. Areas adopting this new funding source would replace their current 911 funding source; they could not keep both.

The bill would also address the need for 911 facilities in many parts of the state to consolidate. Lauer said in Missouri’s 114 counties there are 185 Public Safety Answering Points, or PSAPs.

“That is ridiculous. These facilities are so small they’re not providing the level of service, they’re usurping moneys that the areas don’t have to fund it, so it’s inefficient, it’s ineffective, and we’re not getting the response times to people that we need,” said Lauer. “It’s doing a disservice to our citizenry because constitutionally we are required to keep our people safe, and we’re not.”

Under the bill, where consolidation is needed, voters could not be asked to approve a new funding stream without a plan for consolidation. Lauer says some locations are ready to consolidate but need the bill to be passed to make it possible.

In recent years the House has approved legislation similar to HB 1456 but like so much legislation, it stalled out in the Senate. Lauer is cautiously optimistic for better results this year.

“The difference this year may be that we have been able to run the Senate version of the bill through the Senate committee, and that was actually voted out by a vote of 9-1,” said Lauer. “Then we come to the same point of getting on the floor in the Senate.”

HB 1456 was sent to the Senate on a vote of 111-31.

Legislature’s budget bars use of state-appropriated funds for DUI checkpoints

Missouri drivers could see fewer impaired driving checkpoints under the budget proposed by the legislature.

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (left) and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Dan Brown (right) conduct a budget conference committee hearing in the House Lounge on May 3, 2017. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

Language added by the House would prevent money in that budget from being used on checkpoints. It could still be used for other enforcement efforts, and many lawmakers said they would prefer to see it used for saturation efforts – periods of increased numbers of law enforcement personnel on the roads.

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob) said saturation efforts are more effective.

“Once the subcommittee passed that amendment, made that recommendation, I researched the issue, and the reality is that saturation patrols result in a greater number of arrests and at less cost per arrest,” said Fitzpatrick. “To me what we should do as a budget committee is make sure that we’re spending the money in a way that gets the most number of drunk drivers off the road.”

Representative Kathie Conway (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

The shift was strongly opposed by the Representative Kathie Conway (R-St. Charles), who chairs the subcommittee on the Department of Public Safety’s budget.

“I think that any time we take funds away that help law enforcement stop DWIs, it’s shameful,” said Conway. “These two different methods – the saturation and the DUI checkpoints – work in harmony in the more populous areas … what I wanted to see allowed, either or, or a combination, it did not restrict it, and I very much do not like the House version of it.”

Several House Democrats agreed that they would rather have seen law enforcement allowed to continue using state appropriated funds for checkpoints, however the change was supported by several members of the legislature with law enforcement backgrounds.

Fitzpatrick said he wants to at least see some results.

“I would like to get a year’s worth of data on this. I think it will result in more arrests,” said Fitzpatrick.

The change means that for the fiscal year beginning July 1, law enforcement agencies can still conduct DUI checkpoints, but they cannot use funds allocated by the state budget to pay for them.

The House and Senate voted Thursday to send that budget plan to Governor Eric Greitens (R), one day ahead of its constitutional deadline.

House endorses tougher penalties for crimes against law enforcement

The state House is close to proposing greater penalties for those who commit certain crimes against law enforcement officers.

Representative Marsha Haefner (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

House Bill 57 aims to increase by one degree the penalty for voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, first- or second-degree property damage, unlawful use of a weapon, rioting, or first-degree trespassing, when those crimes are committed against a law enforcement officer.

It’s sponsored by St. Louis Republican Marsha Haefner, who said she hoped the bill would deter the committing of crimes against law enfrocment.

“It is intended to show meaningful and additional support for our officers across the state. It is also to express the level of intolerance Missourians have for those who commit crimes against the very people who have taken an oath to protect and serve us and protect our property,” said Haefner.

Some Republicans expressed reservations about the proposal. Cedar Hill Representative Shane Roden, a firefighter and reserve deputy sheriff, said he was not supportive of changes from an earlier version that would have increased penalties in crimes committed against other first responders, including firefighters. He spoke of an attack on his wife, who was attacked in the back of an ambulance two years ago.

“Our men and women from the fire service, from the ambulance side of things, are just as likely to end up getting attacked as the first responders,” said Roden.

Roden attempted to change the bill to extend to all first responders, but his amendment was defeated.

Kansas City Democrat Brandon Ellington believes the House shouldn’t be debating this issue when he and many Democrats believe it hasn’t done enough to respond to the 2014 shooting by a Ferguson police officer of Michael Brown or the unrest that followed.

“We haven’t had one officer that’s been shot down in the street and left there for six hours. Not one. But we’ve had other people of other colors that’s been left in the streets for over six hours and we can’t work on any kind of accountability legislation,” said Ellington. “The only thing we want to do is give increased protections to those that aren’t in jeopardy.”

St. Charles Republican Kathie Conway is married to a retired police officer. She said the bill would reinforce the legislature’s commitment to law enforcement.

“It’s not that the people that were out there ten or twelve years ago are any more dangerous, it’s that they are emboldened,” said Conway. “I don’t remember the last time, before the incident in New York, that people walked up and shot two officers sitting in a squad car. I don’t remember a time before when a peaceful march was taking place in Dallas and someone opened fire only to kill police officers.”

Representatives Brandon Ellington (left) and Bruce Franks, Jr. (right) stand on either side of Representative Tommie Pierson, Jr. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

St. Louis City Democrat Bruce Franks, Junior, cited two of his family members who were law enforcement officers that were shot and killed. He said for that and other reasons, it is difficult to oppose House Bill 57.

“You never want anybody to think that you don’t care about law enforcement or you don’t feel that law enforcement should be protected each and every day and they shouldn’t return home. That’s not my objective and that’s not where my heart is,” said Franks. “We have measures in place … to put more into that, it doesn’t deter. It won’t keep officers safe. Nobody’s going to think about the fact that they have this enhanced penalty in the back of their head when they go do something horrendous to an officer, which is sad, but when somebody makes that decision, they’ve already made that decision.”

Kimberling City Republican Don Phillips, a retired Highway Patrol trooper, said he has no problem with the bill treating law enforcement like they are special.

“I can tell you when you get up in the morning and you get ready to go to work and the first thing you do is strap on a bullet proof vest, you strap on a – in my case – a .40-calibur Glock automatic and put 47 rounds of ammunition around your waist, you’ve got handcuffs with you, you’ve got an expandable baton, you’ve got another baton in your car, you’ve got a 12-gauge shotgun that’s loaded for riot situations if it comes down to that, you’ve got pepper mace, Mister Speaker when those are the tools of your trade, you’re not a normal citizen. You’re a special person in society. You’re a person that represents our law and order,” said Phillips.

The House also gave initial approval to House Bills 302 and 228, which would create a Blue Alert System. It would be meant to help identify, find, and apprehend anyone suspected of seriously injuring or killing a law enforcement officer. The system would send out messages over television and radio about those suspected of such crimes.

House Bills 302, 228, and 57 all need one more favorable vote to be sent to the state Senate.