Officials in Benton County will ask voters this fall to create a new taxing district to pay for 911 emergency dispatch services.
Calls to 911 have more than doubled in Benton County over the past three decades, but the number of people answering those calls has increased only slightly. That’s according to a report prepared by several area police departments for the Benton County Board of Commissioners.
The Board is moving forward with a plan to ask voters in November to create a new taxing district to pay for an expanded 911 call center. The amount of the new tax won’t be determined until August, but it would be enough to pay for an additional 11 dispatchers.
The district would include most of Benton County, including Corvallis. It would not include the part of Benton County that’s within the Albany city limits, since that area is dispatched through a separate emergency call center.
