Lawmakers scrap phone fee for suicide hotline, seek budget solution

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A proposed 20-cent monthly fee on mobile phones and landlines to bankroll a new national suicide hotline has been scrapped in favor of using money from the state general fund.

The House utilities committee on Tuesday moved out a bill that eliminated the phone tax that would have generated the money needed for new hotline number — 988 — that will replace a 10-digit number used to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

Republican state Rep. Blaine Finch, chair of the utilities committee, proposed an alternative source of funding knowing that the committee was . . .

SSJ

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