Funding for phone calls is the topic of an order coming from the Nebraska Public Service Commission.
Saving lives is a difficult job, and one that emergency dispatchers take on everyday.
That job could get a little bit easier, or, at the very least, require less paperwork.
It's all thanks to some redirected state funding.
"They had a list of what they termed eligible expenses and a number of our larger expenses weren't included," Hall County Emergency Management Director Jon Rosenlund said.
One of those expenses is a vital tool for dispatchers, and even more vital for those needing emergency responders. It's the language line.
"We'll use the language line at least once a day," Rosenlund said. "On average we'll use it thirty to forty times a month."
"The demand, it's always there," Multicultural Coalition of Grand Island Director Carlos Barcenas said.
But, that tool was not previously on the list of eligible expenses for Wireless E911 funding, because the Public Service Commission labeled it as a personnel cost.
"We refuse to eliminate language line as a service," Rosenlund said.
So, the answer was splitting the cost between city and county budgets.
"Sometimes it can get expensive," Barcenas said.
That's not true anymore, as the commission recently handed down an order allowing emergency centers statewide to use those funds for language and personnel services beginning this summer.
"You can pay for all the software and all the phone lines and all the mapping, but if you don't have a dispatcher to actually operate the system, than the system can't work," Rosenlund said.
