The Sunshine State One Call of Florida Inc. (SSOCOF) board of directors has recommended and approved a measure reducing ticket prices at its Sept. 24 board meeting.

Effective as of October 1, SSOCOF members will pay 60 cents for each locate ticket they receive, a two-cent price reduction.

Concurrent price reductions also will occur with late notices and duplicate tickets bringing the cost of these tickets to 59 cents and 30 cents, respectively.

The goal of the SSOCOF is to help protect its members’ buried facilities by providing a cost-effective, high-quality and efficient one-call center –– a center that is mandated by state statute to receive calls from professional excavators and homeowners.

Based on these calls, SSOCOF produces a locate ticket that is transmitted to utility owners with buried facilities close to the excavation site.

Utility owners are then responsible for locating and marking their buried utility lines with color-coded paint or flags, or clearing the site.

Late notices are generated when members do not provide a status code to the positive response system informing excavators of the status of their excavation site.

The two-cent ticket price reduction represents a 3.2 percent decrease in the current ticket price and is the fourth ticket price reduction since the call center became an in-house operation in January 1999.

At that time, the ticket price was 85 cents, bringing the total ticket price reductions to 25 cents or 29.4 percent over SSOCOF’s six-year history.

In an era where cost reductions coincide with a reduction in service, the opposite seems to be true for SSOCOF, its members and damage prevention partners throughout Florida –– as the organization is expanding its services.

Among several programs SSOCOF has implemented is the ITE program, designed to provide 24 hour access to the system plus a comprehensive training program for new ITE users.

Excavators and homeowners may process locate tickets free of charge either by calling 800/432-4770 or using Internet Ticket Entry (ITE) two full business days before digging.

For more information about SSOCOF, visit www.callsunshine.com.

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