Amends TCA Title 7, Chapter 86.

This bill revises and adds to the provisions governing emergency communication districts (ECD), as follows: (1) Under present law, the board of directors of a district must create an emergency communications service capable of utilizing at lease one of the following three methods in response to emergency calls: direct dispatch method, relay method, or transfer method. This bill applies the present law provision to non-emergency calls and requires, prior to January 1, 2023, the ECD to utilize the direct dispatch method in response to emergency calls; this revision will not apply to a district with more than 300 employees until January 1, 2024; (2) Under present law, each public safety emergency services provider retains the right to dispatch its own services, unless a voluntary agreement is made between the provider and the board of directors of the ECD. This bill specifies that such provider retains the right to dispatch its own "non-emergency services" unless voluntary agreed upon between provider and board of directors; (3) Under present law, a service supplier is not required to provide 911 service if the equipment for such service is not available. This bill specifies that a service supplier is not required to provide 911 "non-emergency service" if equipment for such is not available; and (4) This bill requires that all emergency 911 calls, with the exception of misrouted calls, be dispatched by the initial public service answering point without being transferred and provides the dispatcher with discretion to transfer non-emergency calls via attended transfer. "Attended transfer" means the dispatcher taking one call, without placing the caller on hold, and initiating another call to confirm the end destination or third party is prepared for the call so that both calls can be merged.