Compendium of Budget Information for the 2010 General Session
Commerce & Workforce Services Appropriations Subcommittee | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Subcommittee Table of Contents | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Agency: Public Service Commission Line Item: Speech and Hearing Impaired Function The Speech and Hearing Impaired Program provides telecommunication access twenty-four hours a day to hearing or speech impaired persons through Relay Utah. The services are now contracted through SPRINT. SPRINT employs people who use a computer to receive text telephone messages from a TTY (text telephone) and relay the information to the called party. The Commission loans specialized telecommunications equipment to individuals who have hearing or speech barriers. The Commission has an advertising campaign to educate the deaf and the hearing public about 7-1-1 and the telecommunication relay service. Funds collected and carried over from the previous year are used to fund the complete program. The major activity of this budget is telephone calls and demand is increasing. With the implementation of two-way pagers, there is a shift nationally in the way deaf people communicate. The FCC is encouraging states to implement Video Relay Service which would complement the services already provided by Relay Utah. Funding Detail
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