County moving ahead on new radio system
The Polk County Commission met in a special called session to vote on the first steps in the efforts to upgrade the public safety radio system used by police, fire, EMS and even public works employees.
The new APCO (Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials) standard P25 mission critical public safety communications system is slated to cost a total of $6.8 million, which will include a final price that provides municipalities, the Polk School District’s Police Department, and others who require the use of the new digital radio system handheld radios that can be used countywide.
That’s with a 37.2% discount on the entire equipment purchase, with some items receiving a greater discount and others less.
Polk County officials began the process earlier in the year when they learned of the opportunity to use the Cobb County network already in place as a core system that’ll link up with other counties in the area and provide greater coverage overall.
To do so, the county is looking to Motorola to provide both new towers, upgrades to current equipment and the hardware and software support to bring the pieces together into a better communications system.
Commissioners voted unanimously on two items specifically in regards to the purchase. First, they approved a motion to allow the county to finance subscriber unit billings with the municipalities, the school system, EMS entities and others to be structured in such a way that full payment will not be due immediately,
but split in half.
“The purpose is to allow the payment of the initial purchase to be spread over a two fiscal year period,” Commissioner Ray Carter explained. “I think this will give our entities much more flexibility in the cost they incur.”
Additionally, the commission approved taking on the entire cost of maintenance of the system over a 10 year period of time, with a total cost of $3.3 million over that span.
The maintenance agreement with Motorola will include regular upgrades of equipment as new technology becomes available within
the infrastructure, any replacement parts and installation that has to be completed, and any software upgrades that must be done by technicians. The payments for the maintenance portion of the contract will fall annually, and increase by 3% each year.
Carter said in making the motion that he wanted to avoid the costs being passed onto the cities, school district and EMS providers using the radio system. The maintenance agreement does not include any costs to repair or replace handheld radios used by officials in the field, like police officers or public works employees.
“I’m all for wanting to help,” Commissioner Hal Floyd said. “I think we’re all a part of this, and I’m one of those guys who believes in helping
your neighbor and sharing and helping all you can.”
Commissioners brought together officials from the entities involved in the radio system to answer questions about the new radio system ahead of their special called session on Nov. 15. In that meeting, a timeline of about 12 to 18 months was proposed for installation of the new system, which would include additional radio towers in the county going up. Those would require the county to identify and secure sites before they are to go up with the help of Motorola, who is already working out a coverage map of where they think the best spots would be to guarantee at least 95% of the area able to receive clear signals.
In that process, officials will be
invited to Chicago, Illinois to take part in the final staging of all the equipment coming together before being installed and deployed in the field. They hope to have the radio system in place before the start of 2021.
Votes on Nov. 15 set in place the ability for the county to take on the costs up front on their own and be paid back by the cities, school district and EMS providers for their portion of providing radios for the new P-25 system. If radios are delivered by the end of the 2020 fiscal year in July, a first payment would be due for their portion of the cost then, and then not again until midway through 2021. The further back full implementation of the system is pushed, so will the initial payments from partner entities.
What hasn’t been identified yet are the exact funding sources for the new system upgrade and requirement to buy new radios throughout the entities who have access to radio communications through 911. Additionally, intergovernmental agreements will have to be put in place with the cities of Aragon, Cedartown and Rockmart plus the Polk School District to be able to continue forward with the project.
Those agreements are in the works as well, and the need for an additional special called session is likely in the days ahead. As of press time over the weekend, none yet were called.
Additional information about future meetings can be found on Polkstandardjournal.com as they become available.