The Haines Borough Police Department’s $500,000 Enhanced-911 and dispatch services project has hit “a significant roadblock for completion,” according to a recent manager’s report.

  The “enhanced” element of the 911 system – the part that produces an address or location of a call’s origin so ambulance, fire and police know where to go – isn’t working. That’s because the piece of equipment needed to display that information wasn’t included in the request for proposals that went out in 2013.

  That piece of equipment, called a Standalone Address Location Information system (SALI), would cost the borough an additional $50,000.

  “The caller ID and address are the items most people associate with E-911, so it is surprising that these were not intended for initial inclusion,” said manager David Sosa. “It appears that the decision to exclude them was related to Alaska Power & Telephone capabilities at the time. Since the decision was made, it seems AP&T now has the capability to provide the addresses but this necessitates purchase of the SALI system.”

  Sosa isn’t recommending the borough purchase the SALI system at this time. Instead, he is hoping AP&T will develop the capability to provide the information to the department in the future without the assistance of the SALI software.

  The borough received a $70,000 United States Department of Agriculture Community Facility Grant to pay for a portion of the project, but otherwise the borough has borne the remainder of the roughly $430,000 cost.

  Conversations about how to pay for operations and maintenance of the system resurrected discussion of tacking on a monthly “E911 surcharge” to local phone bills.

  “I would recommend that the borough move forward with implementing the surcharge,” Sosa said. “This will be unpopular, particularly given the questions about the system, but the system needs to be funded to ensure that the appropriate monies are available to continue its operation and maintenance.”

The goal is to run it like an enterprise fund, he said. “What I want to be able to do is pay for the operation costs, pay for system upgrades as required, and put money away so we can replace the system at the end of its lifespan.”

  Municipalities are allowed to apply a monthly phone fee of up to $2 to pay for emergency services, but Sosa said initial assessments indicate the fee would be closer to $1.25.

  The surcharge would apply only to local cell phones and land lines, numbers that start with the prefixes 766, 767, 303 and 314.

  Sosa said he aims to assess the fee by the summer.

  Though the “enhanced” 911 portion of the project isn’t working, the rest of the project is complete. It included replacing radios, improving emergency communications out Mud Bay Road and up the Haines Highway, fixing repeaters, and improving incident logging and tracking.