A $10.9 million lawsuit Butler County filed against 15 telephone providers for not billing and collecting 911 assessment fees is on hold pending a decision in Delaware County.

Attorney Joshua Wolson of the Philadelphia firm Dilworth Paxson, which represents the county, said the case is on hold due to a coordination proceeding in Delaware County.

“There’s a whole bunch of counties that filed different lawsuits,” Wolson said.

He said those counties, beginning with Delaware, have sued the phone companies for 911 funds, so the various lawsuits are being coordinated.

Butler County Judge Marilyn Horan on June 7 ruled that arguments on preliminary objections for Butler’s lawsuit will wait until the coordination issue is resolved.

The county lawsuit, which was filed in February, seeks to recover six years of funds.

The fee is tacked onto phone bills to help pay for 911 dispatch center operations.

Steve Bicehouse, county emergency services director, said the fees are vital to maintain the 911 system.

“They are the bulk of our funding,” he said. “They are extremely essential.”

The county spent $3.1 million in 2014 to support the 911 center. Of that total, $1.7 million came from 911 fees with the remaining $1.4 million coming from property tax money.

Totals for 2015 are not available due to 911 funding being tied to fiscal years, which concludes at the end of June.

Rob McLafferty, county 911 coordinator, said the higher fee assessed to phone users so far in 2016 is projected to bring in 18 percent more for the 2015-16 fiscal year.

The county so far has received $1.95 million for 911 fees assessed to wireless and land-line phones in the current fiscal year.

The money covers salaries for the 20 full-time dispatchers, 17 part-timers and two administrators at the 911 center.

McLafferty stressed the center’s operations must be maintained to ensure public safety.

“We got to support 911 no matter what,” he said.

McLafferty said phone users pay the fee, so companies need to be paying the full amount they owe to prevent taxpayers from paying even higher amounts.

“We want to ensure the taxpayers receive everything that’s coming to them,” he said.

Bicehouse said it’s not been determined how much money from the past six years could be owed to the county.

The county believes up to 15 telephone companies may have misrepresented the types and number of phone lines being assessed the 911 fees, leading to significant under billing.

County Controller Ben Holland previously said the gap between total fees remitted and the center’s total cost factored into fiscal shortages in the county heading into 2016.

The county filed the suit after learning of the issue from other counties and the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.

Dilworth Paxson is working on a contingency basis, so the firm won’t be owed any money unless the suit is successful.

Suits also are being filed in more than a dozen other states. While lawsuits in Pennsylvania have yet to be decided, similar ones in other states have met success.

These companies are defendants in the county’s lawsuit: CenturyLink Communications, The United Telephone Co. of Pennsylvania, Consolidated Communications of Pennsylvania Co., Consolidated Communications Enterprise Services, Core Communications, Intermedia Communications of Florida, Verizon Pennsylvania, Level 3 Communications, Telcove of Eastern Pennsylvania, AT&T, Teleport Communications America, US LEC of Pennsylvania, Bandwidth.com CLEC, Comcast Phone of Pennsylvania, and Peerless Network of Pennsylvania.