Spokane dispatch funding bill passes house, heads to Senate

OLYMPIA – A bill to divvy up tax revenue as the Spokane Fire Department prepares to leave the regional 911 center continues to move forward in the Washington Legislature.

Every police and fire jurisdiction in Spokane County, except the Spokane Police Department, is a member of Spokane Regional Emergency Communications, or SREC. In January, following years of negotiations to bring the city police department into the agency, the proposal collapsed and the SREC board voted to end negotiations and remove the city fire department.

Sponsored by Democratic state Reps. Timm Ormsby and Natasha Hill of Spokane, the bill would divide roughly $5 million of excise tax dollars generated per year in the county. While similar proposals have been introduced in previous sessions, the legislation took a step forward last week after it successfully passed out of the House of Representatives.

The bill is under consideration in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

The regional dispatcher is funded through a sales tax, an excise tax on phone bills, and a user fee each jurisdiction must pay on top of the taxes proportional to their demand on the system. The excise tax dollars generated per year in the county are the source of the argument.

With around 55% of the 911 calls in Spokane County last year coming from Spokane city limits, city leadership argued the city should receive roughly that proportion of revenue from the excise tax.

“If we have to run a primary PSAP, it’s only right that we should have a portion of the two dedicated funding streams that are meant to fund that service in our county,” Spokane City Administrator Alex Scott said as he testified in support during a Senate Ways and Means Committee hearing Tuesday.

At the hearing, Spokane Fire Chief Julie O’Berg testified that funding from the bill would “provide a framework for the communications infrastructure we are losing by being removed from the regional communication system, provide training for dispatchers, and implement technologies that can save lives.”

“The passage of the bill is a critical component to ensuring that our emergency response system remains robust and is capable of meeting the needs of our growing community,” O’Berg said.

Katy Myers, chair of the Washington state 911 advisory committee, argued the bill “contradicts our repeated recommendations to protect the integrity of the 911 excise tax fund.”

The bill, Myers said, would “further divide an already insufficient fund,” and she urged members of the Senate to vote against it.

“My biggest concern is that you’re taking a fund that’s already underfunded and putting it out into more centers, which costs more money,” Myers said.

A similar bill was introduced in 2023, but it was not adopted after its sponsors acknowledged it would likely disrupt ongoing negotiations. As of Wednesday, a vote in the Senate Ways and Means Committee has not been scheduled.