Assemblywoman Amy Paulin (D-88) is proud to announce that A.608/S.932, legislation she authored, was passed by the New York State Assembly on Tuesday.

The legislation would help ensure that people in public buildings know how to access 911 in case of emergencies. It would require that all public buildings operating on a multi-line telephone system configure their system hardware to allow any call to 911 on the system to be directly connected to a public service answering point.

“People in our state expect that if they dial 911 in an emergency, they will be connected to a public service answering point, and that emergency assistance will be dispatched,” Paulin said. “However, this is not always the case when someone calls 911 from a multi-line telephone system. Multi-line telephone systems often require users to dial additional numbers in order to be connected to an outside line. These telephone systems are commonly found in public office buildings, schools, hotels and motels.

“Should an emergency arise in a public building where police, fire or medical services are needed, it is imperative that those calling for help can easily reach a 911 operator. In order to ensure that time is not wasted in an emergency, multi-line phone systems should be converted to allow users to dial 911 directly.”

A public building that would have to upgrade its system hardware in order to directly connect to 911 can instead place an instructional sticker on or around the telephone informing users of the phone's inability to directly dial 911 and the procedures to follow to connect to 911 in case of an emergency.

Thomas Croci (R-3) is sponsoring the bill in the Senate.