2023 New Mexico Statutes › Chapter 63 - Railroads and Communications › Article 9D - Enhanced 911 › Section 63-9D-4 - Provision for enhanced 911 services by local governing bodies; enhanced 911 system costs; payment of costs; joint powers agreements; aid outside jurisdictional boundaries.

A. A local governing body or a consortium of local governing bodies may incur costs for the purchase, lease, installation or maintenance of enhanced 911 equipment and training necessary for the establishment of an enhanced 911 system and may pay such costs through disbursements from the fund; provided that the local governing body has employed properly trained staff in its public safety answering point pursuant to the Public Safety Telecommunicator Training Act [29-7C-1 to 29-7C-9 NMSA 1978].
B. If the enhanced 911 system is to be provided for territory that is included in whole or in part in the jurisdiction of the local governing bodies of two or more public agencies that are the primary providers of emergency firefighting, law enforcement, ambulance, emergency medical or other emergency services, the agreement for the procurement of the enhanced 911 system shall be entered into by the fiscal agent designated by the local governing bodies. A local governing body may expressly exclude itself from the agreement. Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to prevent two or more local governing bodies from entering into a joint powers agreement pursuant to the Joint Powers Agreements Act [11-1-1 to 11-1-7 NMSA 1978] to establish a separate legal entity that can enter into an agreement as the enhanced 911 system customer.
C. A public agency in an enhanced 911 service area shall provide that, once an emergency unit is dispatched in response to a request for aid through the enhanced 911 system, the emergency unit shall render services to the requester without regard to whether the unit is operating outside its normal jurisdictional boundaries.
D. A local governing body in an enhanced 911 service area shall provide GIS addressing and digital mapping data to the public safety answering point that provides the enhanced 911 service to the local governing body.
History:
Laws 1989, ch. 25, § 4; 1993, ch. 48, § 5; 2001, ch. 110, § 2; 2005, ch. 203, § 2.
ANNOTATIONS
The 2005 amendment,
effective July 1, 2005, in Subsection A, provided that a consortium of local governing bodies may acquire enhanced 911 equipment and training; deleted former provisions relating to the recovery and distribution of necessary network and database costs; and provided that the costs of enhanced 911 equipment may be paid from the enhanced 911 fund provided that the local governing body has employed properly trained staff in its public safety answering point pursuant to the Public Safety Telecommunicator Training Act; provided in Subsection B that an agreement for procurement of an enhanced 911 system shall be entered into by the fiscal agent designated by the local governing bodies and deleted the former provision that the agreement shall provide that each local governing body not excluded from the agreement shall make payment for the enhanced 911 system from general revenues; and added Subsection D.
The 2001 amendment,
effective July 1, 2001 in Subsection A, added the Paragraph (1) designation, inserted "surcharge" in that paragraph and added Paragraph (2); in Subsection B, substituted "the enhanced 911 system" for "a 911 system", substituted "entering into a joint powers agreement pursuant to the Joint Powers Agreements Act" for "entering into a contract", and substituted "that can enter" for "that is, separate governing body, and thereunder to enter".
The 1993 amendment,
effective July 1, 1993, rewrote the catchline which read "Provision for Enhanced 911 Services by Local Governing Bodies - Payment of Costs - Joint Powers Agreements"; substituted "a 911 system" for "an enhanced 911 system" and inserted "enhanced 911" near the end of the first sentence of Subsection A; substituted the current second sentence in Subsection A for language authorizing communities to incur costs for development of network capability and enhanced 911 system database; substituted "procurement of the necessary equipment for a 911 system" for "necessary equipment" in the first sentence of Subsection B; added Subsection C; and made stylistic changes.
Emergency communications center is a "governmental entity" for purposes of the Tort Claims Act.
— Where plaintiff, a police officer who was injured during a call for service, filed suit for personal injuries against the Valencia regional emergency communications center (VRECC), an entity created pursuant to the New Mexico Enhanced 911 Act, NMSA 1978, §§ 63-9D-1 to 63-9D-11.1, to provide enhanced 911 emergency communications functions for an area that includes the incorporated boundaries of the villages of Los Lunas and Bosque Farms and Valencia county, and where the district court dismissed claims against the VRECC, finding that the VRECC was a governmental entity for purposes of the Tort Claims Act and that immunity had not been waived, the district court did not err in dismissing claims against the VRECC, because the VRECC is an entity created pursuant to statute to provide basic safety and health services on behalf of the villages and Valencia county, is controlled by the villages and Valencia county, and possesses their same powers and duty with regard to the health and welfare of their citizens, and is thus a "governmental entity" under the Tort Claims Act.
Gebler v. Valencia Reg'l Emergency Commc'n Ctr
., 2023-NMCA-070.