County dedicates radio funds
The Garland County Quorum Court appropriated $4,102,101 Monday night to make the county a fulltime user on the Arkansas Wireless Information Network, the state communication system used by 900 local, state and federal entities.
Excess collections of the temporary five-eighths cent sales tax voters approved in 2011 to build the $41,739,052 Garland County Detention Center will pay for more than 400 mobile and portable radios and the infrastructure upgrades to accommodate the added traffic. The $46,079,913 in sales tax proceeds retired the capital
improvement bonds that financed the jail’s construction five months early, allowing the county to receive the excess collections and deposit it in the newly created General Reserve Capital Fund.
County Judge Rick Davis signed the termination of tax certificate at the end of September, but the sales tax didn’t sunset until the end of last year. State law doesn’t allow the levy of a sales and use tax to end until the first day of the calendar quarter after 90 days from the date the Department of Finance and Administration receives the termination of tax certificate from the state treasurer’s office. The 90-day period allows DFA to notify retailers that the tax no longer needs to be collected.
The General Reserve Capital Fund had a $4,557,890 cash balance at the end of last month, according to the county’s office of financial management. The total reflects five months of excess collections.
It also includes $156,480 the county appropriated last year from mineral royalties and refunds from workers’ compensation insurance and the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System. The county said an additional $943,858 will be deposited to the fund after Simmons Bank, the trustee of the sales tax proceeds, releases it.
County Treasurer Tim Stockdale said Simmons is expected to release the money later this week. The bank is holding the funds back to ensure it doesn’t owe taxes on bond proceeds it invested in the taxable bond market.
Any interest the bank earned in excess of the yield on the tax-exempt bonds the county issued to build the jail is subject to taxes.
The county is currently a part-time AWIN user with access to one statewide interoperability channel. The total cost to make the county a full-time user is $5.58 million, according to information provided at Monday night’s Finance Committee meeting. Full-time use will give the county 30 talk groups for its emergency and public service operations.
Davis told the committee that price won’t change unless the county chooses to add more radios to the contract it’s negotiating with Motorola, AWIN’s infrastructure contractor. Motorola has the state contract for AWIN infrastructure, but Project 25, Phase 2 radios from multiple vendors — including Motorola, E.F. Johnson, Kenwood, Harris and Tait — are AWIN compatible, according to AWIN.
The $5.58 million includes 446 portable, mobile and base station radios for the sheriff’s department, department of emergency management, the road department, environmental services, the coroner’s office and nine volunteer fire departments.
District 11 Justice of the Peace Larry Griffin voted against the appropriation because no radios have been allotted for the Hot Springs Village Police Department. Griffin’s northern Garland County district includes the Village’s western precincts. He said Village police assisted the sheriff’s department more than 200 times last year on calls outside the Village gates, and that Village residents were subject to the sales tax that will fund the radio project.
Davis said the legality of providing the Village, which he said is considered a private corporation, with equipment paid for by public money is uncertain. He told Griffin the Village wouldn’t get any radios until someone from the area’s legislative delegation solicits a legal opinion from the attorney general’s office.
The 446 total includes radios for the command structure at the nine volunteer fire departments, but Department of Emergency Management Director Bo Robertson said the volunteer associations will receive more radios if the county is awarded the federal grant it’s applied for.
He said Deputy DEM Director Bobby King and Highway 70 West Fire Chief Autumn Carlisle applied for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Assistance to Firefighters grant, which would award the county about $1 million to purchase additional AWIN radios.
To accommodate the added users the county will bring to AWIN, capacity has to be added to four existing AWIN towers at Blowout Mountain off Walnut Valley Road, Jack Mountain in Hot Spring County, High Peak Mountain in Montgomery County and a tower in Magnet Cove.
The county will add two new towers to the AWIN system at Pearcy Mountain and Ouachita Pinnacle Mountain north of Lake Ouachita. Robertson said AWIN will build the latter tower at no cost to the county. It will be on Ouachita Pinnacle, one of the state’s highest points. Robertson said its elevation will make it a critical component in the AWIN system.
The county will also have to upgrade the tower the city and county operate on West Mountain, as it will be the relay site for the $700,000 dispatch center the county is building inside the old detention center adjoining the sheriff’s department. It will include a 100-foot tower capable of supporting a microwave dish 6 feet in diameter that will link the dispatch center with the West Mountain tower, a key link in the microwave system that will connect all seven towers.
The system’s simulcast capability will allow users in the field to access the tower emitting the strongest signal instead of their radios having to search for a specific tower, Robertson said.
The city hasn’t committed to AWIN for its radio improvement plan, but the 162-page request for proposals it issued to vendors last month stipulates that a new system be AWIN compatible. The six 800 MHz frequencies the Federal Communications Commission has licensed the city for would give its public safety agencies 12 talk groups.