Wheeling votes to put 911 fee on ballot

Wheeling voters will be asked to pay double their 911 fee in the fall election.

The village board voted 5-2 on the issue Monday, the last day local governments could vote to approve a referendum on the November ballot.

Currently local municipalities charge different fees for their 911 service - from Skokie which charges nothing, all the way to Kenilworth, which charges $5 a month, Wheeling Fire Chief Keith MacIsaac said.

"It's all over the map," he said. "If this were to pass, we certainly won't be the highest."

Currently about 60 percent of the 911 calls that come to Wheeling are made on cell phones, with 40 percent made on land lines, MacIsaac said.

Village President Judy Abruscato voted in favor of the increase along with trustees Ray Lang, Ken Brady, Dean Argiris and David Vogel. Trustees Patrick Horcher and Robert Heer voted against the idea.

Horcher pointed out that without the increase, the 911 dispatch center won't shut down. Heer said the surcharge would be unfair to seniors.

However, if the increase isn't approved, the village will have to find another way to fund the system and that could mean pulling from the general fund, Abruscato said.

"This is important," she said. "If we take it out of the general fund, we're talking about increasing the levy."

If approved, the 911 Wheeling surcharge increase would go from 75 cents to $1.45 a month for each land telephone line in the village.

By law, the money raised by this surcharge can be used only for police and fire dispatch services, and the village wants the extra money to keep the system and its technology up to date.

There is a 73 cent charge on cell phones registered in the village, but Wheeling only gets 58 cents of that charge, MacIsaac said.

In February, Wheeling residents narrowly rejected the proposed increase in the monthly 911 surcharge - 1,561 votes were cast against it, and 1,400 residents voted for it.

Voters rejected the same increase in 2008.