Public safety radio system gets a break

Broward County schools shift buses to different setup

Broward County’s overburdened public safety radio system is getting a break that should help it function until a new system can be put in place, possibly next year.

School bus drivers won’t be talking on its airwaves anymore. The school district has completed the transfer of 1,367 buses over to a new radio system that operates separately from the one used by police, firefighters and other emergency responders.

The state commission formed after the Parkland massacre last year has continually criticized the county for not getting a new public safety radio system operating sooner. The commission also questioned why the school district didn’t get off the current system faster.

The aging public safety radio system has faltered at critical times under heavy use, slowing responses and preventing police from communicating with dispatchers and fellow officers. The system encountered major problems during the responses to the February 2018 school shooting and the January 2017 shooting at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.

Broward school officials had planned to have their switch-over complete before school starts Aug. 14. They announced Thursday that the work was done.

“The migrated system will continue to provide reliable communication to our buses each day without affecting the capacity of the public safety system,” Superintendent Robert Runcie said in a prepared statement.

New radios have been installed on the buses, on 14 fleet maintenance trucks and at four dispatch control stations, in addition to the purchase of 314 new twoway, hand-held portable radios, school officials said. Those radios are separate

from 1,100 portable radios distributed to more than 190 district schools in March.

Training on the new system has been taking place since June and will finish up before the start of classes, officials said.

Members of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission said they fear the current radio system could fail again if another mass casualty incident occurs.

The school radios aren’t the only ones that have switched to the new radio system. About 2,000 county workers — including employees from the airport, Port Everglades, the county parks department and its water and wastewater services — are now on the nonemergency radio system, county officials said.

The system should save money, too, officials said. Its radios cost between $800 and $1,000 per unit. The public safety system radios can cost more than $6,000 each.