Pa. counties face rising emergency costs. The legislature didn’t include an increase to the 911 phone fee in the budget to help them.
Pennsylvania lawmakers once again declined to increase the state’s 911 surcharge in this year’s budget, leaving counties to cover rising costs for emergency call centers on their own. The surcharge — a monthly, flat-rate phone fee Pennsylvanians pay to support emergency services — helps cover the costs of personnel, technology and maintenance of 61 call centers operating statewide. But according to 2024 data from the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, counties end up covering almost 20% of those expenses themselves. The association advocated for increasing the ...
