Colorado § 29-11-102.3 - 911 surcharge - imposition - 911 surcharge trust cash fund - rules - report - definition.

§ 29-11-102.3. 911 surcharge - imposition - 911 surcharge trust cash fund - rules - report - definition.

(1) (a) Effective January 1, 2021, a 911 surcharge, referred to in this section as the "surcharge", is hereby imposed on service users in an amount to be established annually by the commission but not to exceed fifty cents per month per 911 access connection together with the 911 enterprise fee imposed pursuant to section 29-11-108 (8)(a).

(b) On or before October 1, 2020, and on or before October 1 each year thereafter, the commission shall establish, through a public proceeding, the amount of the surcharge for the next calendar year. The amount of the surcharge must be reasonably calculated to meet the needs of governing bodies to pay for basic emergency service and provide emergency telephone service and must take into consideration the amount of the 911 enterprise fee imposed pursuant to section 29-11-108 (8)(a) and the budgetary requirements set forth in this section. Upon establishing the amount of the surcharge, the commission shall send notice of the new amount to all service suppliers. The new amount takes effect on the following January 1.

(c) The amount of the surcharge imposed per 911 access connection must be uniform, regardless of the technology used to provide the 911 access connection.

(2) Each service supplier shall collect the surcharge from its service users. The surcharge must not be combined with the local emergency telephone charge described in section 29-11-102 if it is listed on the service user's monthly bill. The 911 surcharge is the liability of the service user and not of the service supplier; except that the service supplier is liable to remit all 911 surcharges that the service supplier collects from service users.

(3) (a) The service supplier shall remit the collected surcharges to the commission on a monthly basis in a manner established by the commission. The commission shall establish remittance procedures by rule. A service supplier is subject to the penalties and procedures in section 29-11-103 for the failure to collect or correctly remit a surcharge in accordance with this section.

(b) A service supplier may deduct and retain one percent of the surcharges that it collects from its service users if it timely remits the collected surcharges to the commission.

(c) (I) (A) Remittances of surcharges received by the commission are collections for the local governing body, not general revenues of the state, and shall be held in trust in the 911 surcharge trust cash fund, which is hereby created. Except as provided in subsection (3)(c)(II) of this section, the commission shall transmit the money in the 911 surcharge trust cash fund to each governing body within sixty days after the commission receives the money for use by such governing body for the purposes permitted under section 29-11-104.

(B) Remittances of the 911 enterprise fee received by the commission are collections for the enterprise, not general revenue of the state, and must be held in trust in the 911 enterprise fee trust cash fund, which is created in the state treasury. The commission shall transmit the money in the 911 enterprise fee trust cash fund to the state treasurer within sixty days after the commission receives the money, and the state treasurer shall credit the revenue to the enterprise fund.

(II) The commission may expend an amount, not to exceed four percent of the collected surcharges in the 911 surcharge trust cash fund, necessary to reimburse the commission for its direct and indirect costs of administering the collection and remittance of surcharges for the local governing bodies, including costs related to conducting audits of service suppliers in accordance with section 29-11-103 (7).

(III) The commission shall establish a formula for distribution of money from the surcharge to the governing bodies pursuant to subsection (3)(c)(I)(A) of this section based upon the number of concurrent sessions maintained by the PSAPs of each governing body. The commission shall establish the formula by October 1 of each year. The commission shall promulgate rules concerning changes to the number of concurrent sessions for which a governing body is reimbursed under this section. For the purposes of this section, "concurrent session" means a channel for an inbound simultaneous 911 request for assistance.

(4) As part of the report required by section 40-2-131, the commission shall report on the 911 surcharge, including amounts remitted and transmitted to local governing bodies.

(5) This section does not apply to prepaid wireless telecommunications services.

Source: L. 2020: Entire section added, (HB 20-1293), ch. 267, p. 1286, § 5, effective July 10. L. 2024: (1)(a), (1)(b), (3)(b), (3)(c)(I), and (3)(c)(III) amended, (SB 24-139), ch. 302, p. 2051, § 2, effective August 7.