Sheriff offers radios for smaller departments

BENTONVILLE — Benton County Sheriff Shawn Holloway on Tuesday offered $200,000 from his office’s funds to offset some of the cost of proposed new radios for smaller police and fire departments in Benton County.

Holloway is asking the Quorum Court to spend about $4.8 million for a new system for the Sheriff’s Office and jail, the Road Department, emergency services, the Coroner’s Office and the county’s rural fire service, which will distribute the equipment among the county’s smaller fire departments. The proposal also includes a $250,000 contingency fund to cover unexpected costs. The estimated cost to cities to buy their own police and fire department radios is about $750,000.

Holloway said the Sheriff’s Office and other county officials have worked for several years on ways to replace the 15-year-old system the county now uses.

“I know this is a lot of money but this is a good deal,” Holloway said.

The Quorum Court’s Public Safety Committee met Tuesday to hear more about plans for a new emergency communications system for the Sheriff’s Office, Emergency Management, Road Department and other county offices. The smaller police and fire departments in the county that rely on the county system for dispatching and other services would also be required to switch to the new system.

The county would buy seven new consoles for the county’s dispatch center, along with 356 mobile radios for vehicles, 601 portable radios for individuals and 175 pagers for the rural fire departments.

Benton County would also buy 27 mobile radios, which are kept in vehicles, and 27 portable radios, which are carried by individuals, for city fire departments that operate county-owned fire apparatus.

The new radios would not cover all of the needs of fire and police departments in the smaller cities. The smaller

cities would need to buy all new radios and equipment to be compatible with the new county system. Each new mobile radio costs about $1,295, according to information presented to the Quorum Court. Each portable radio costs about $995. Pagers cost about $695 each.

Fire Chief Mike Morris of Lowell said the radios being priced are not adequate for fire service. He said they are not waterproof and have other problems in fire situations.

“I will never send one of my firefighters into a fire with one of those $995 radios,” Morris said. Morris said the radios needed for firefighters cost $2,500 or more.

Bob Bland, justice of the peace for District 11, said he would like to have the smaller departments provide their own information on what they need.

“I’d really like to see what they think they need and figure out a way we can help them,” Bland said.

County Judge Barry Moehring said he does not support the inclusion of a new computer-assisted dispatch system as part of acquiring a new radio system. He said

the CAD system is included as part of the package and incentives but could be separated.

“This would impose a direct change on CenCom that we’re not up for right now,” Moehring said.

Moehring said he would like to see the dispatch system put out for proposals as a separate entity.

“There’s lots of competition out there,” Moehring said.

Moehring said he thinks the cost of the radio system could be cut to about $3.5 million. That would be more affordable for the county and give the Quorum Court additional money that could be used to help smaller departments with the cost of new radios.

Holloway said the system is designed for more than dispatching, including a range of record-keeping functions and GPS tracking for individual radios when deputies are outside their vehicles.

“We will not be able to get another system this cheap, I can tell you,” Holloway said.

Justices of the peace vote 3-2 to move forward with the purchase of the radio system only.