By Janet Pelletier / Special

Just seven months into operation, a 911 call center is forcing the cities of Johns Creek and Sandy Springs to toss it a lifeline.

The Chattahoochee River 911 Authority (ChatComm) will be receiving a cash influx of $1 million -- $650,000 from Sandy Springs and $350,000 from Johns Creek, according to Johns Creek Mayor Mike Bodker.

The shortfall, with estimates hovering around the $2 million mark, has been largely due to unforeseen issues. The one with the most powerful blow is a $1.50 tax for emergency services that's assessed on every phone line in the two cities. Funds from the fee were expected to pay for the center operations -- including 42 employees who make up the staff -- but they are woefully short. In some cases, the fee is going to other jurisdictions if the provider has an old address.

"What has caused the situation has been a timing issue where the subscribers' monies are not coming into the appropriate locations," he said. "They're still being paid to someone else -- whether it be they were never going to Fulton [County] or whether it be that they were going to Fulton but for whatever reason they haven't found their way to Johns Creek or Sandy Springs."

Sandy Springs Councilwoman Ashley Jenkins said the cities based their budget for the call center on information obtained from providers such as AT&T and Comcast on the number of wireless and land lines in the geographical area.

But what wasn't disclosed, Jenkins said, were the number of phone lines that AT&T was discovered to be trunking – providing coverage through a network of lines.

"Those trunk lines do not have to pay the $1.50 fee, so AT&T didn't tell the company that was doing the assessment that they had all these trunk lines," she said. "That's why there's a discrepancy."

In addition, the down economy has decreased the number of active phone lines with several commercial businesses shuttering their doors and startup costs to launch the call center have also factored in, Bodker said.

The cities are making an effort to recoup the fees and they are asking residents to get proactive and check their bills to see if the fee is going to the appropriate place, he added.

The call center on Mount Vernon Highway is run by iXP, a New Jersey-based public communications consulting firm. Sandy Springs and Johns Creek partnered on the center, replacing the county system, in an effort to improve response times and increase reliability. Calls go out to the police and fire departments for the two cities as well as Rural Metro Ambulance in Sandy Springs.

Joseph Estey, who is the deputy director of operations and human resources for ChatComm, said since the center's inception, it has received more than 67,000 calls for assistance and dispatchers handle a total of 35-40 calls per hour.

"90 percent of the calls are answered within 10 seconds," Estey said.

"The technology involved is much, much better," Bodker said. "It's light years ahead of where Fulton County was and in theory, it's being done for the same amount of money."

There has been interest from neighboring cities in partnering on the authority, which would help alleviate the financial burden on Johns Creek and Sandy Springs.