December 29, 2023
By: Dwayne Page
Should the county commission sign on to a deal to make a $2.3 million investment under a seven-year financing plan through Motorola Solutions to upgrade its radio communication system for emergency services?
The answer to that question may come during a special called meeting of the commission set for Friday, January, 12 at 6 p.m. to be held at the Mike Foster Multipurpose center auditorium.
During Thursday night’s regular monthly commission meeting, County Mayor Matt Adcock brought up the subject although it was not on the agenda. Adcock said he wanted to give the commissioners a chance to talk about it even if they did not want to act on it Thursday night.
If the county enters into a contract with Motorola Solutions, Mayor Adcock said a revenue source must be identified to fund the annual payments which are expected to be over $346,000. To take advantage of the Motorola offer at current pricing, the county must act before January 19. The new Motorola radios would be under warranty for seven years.
At previous workshop and committee meetings, Brad Mullinax, Director of the DeKalb Emergency Communications (E-911) District, has urged the county commission to begin making plans to update the county’s mobile, portable, and fixed radio transmission technology (replacing approximately 160 portables, 75 vehicle repeaters, and 73 mobile radios) and to join the Tennessee Advanced Communications Network (TACN) which provides first responders the ability to have additional coverage to talk on the radio with surrounding state communication towers during major events and disasters no matter where they (first responders) are located. In order to join the TACN network, Mullinax explained that all county responder radios will need to be replaced.
To help the county offset the first-year cost, Mullinax said the DeKalb 911 Emergency Communications District is offering to make a $300,000 contribution. “We (911 Board) were planning to use that money to purchase new dispatch consoles for our own upgrade, but Motorola has offered to provide our consoles at no cost. As result of that offer to us by Motorola, we can give the county the $300,000 to purchase the radios,” said Mullinax.
County Mayor Adcock said he had asked Mullinax if Motorola would be willing to extend the January 19th deadline on the offer to give the county commission more time to consider it.
“I asked Brad to see if they (Motorola) would be willing to extend the deadline to February. He said they would but that we (county) might not be able to get the same technology such as Wi Fi capabilities that those radios could perform inside buildings (if we wait)”.
“How could we lose technology if we just wait one month” asked Commissioner Glynn Merriman.
Mullinax, who was in attendance at Thursday night’s meeting, responded to Merriman’s question.
“Our Motorola representative said he would extend that offer out to February 19 with the understanding that if we make changes to the scope of the project it may change the price a little bit,” explained Mullinax.
“For example, the scope of the project that we initially included was a certain type of radio, an APX8000 radio which we thought was going to be fine. We went to the school system and found out that they had just recently upgraded their Wi Fi technology inside the schools. Because of that we are going to have to change that model around to get a little bit different radio (to ensure Wi Fi backup capabilities in school buildings),” said Mullinax.
Although the school system is not included in this project, school resource officers inside the school buildings will need to have these new radios for better communication ability.
“These radios are just for public safety (sheriff’s department, county fire department, rescue squad and for EMS portables and base station radios. Mobile radios only that go into ambulances will be supplied by the state),” said Mullinax. “There is no allocation for school buses and school personnel. This is just strictly for public safety. They (schools) can piggyback off the system and utilize it but there are no radios allocated for the school system. There will be a radio for each of the five school resource officers and a mobile radio that goes in their cars with a vehicle repeater,” said Mullinax.
Quinn Sheradon of Motorola Solutions, who was also in attendance at the commission meeting Thursday night, was asked how many years these new radios could be expected to last.
“We usually recommend updating every seven or eight years but you can ask neighboring counties and people are using them for ten plus years. Although this is a big investment, these things are built to last,” said Sheradon.
According to Mullinax, radios are only part of the problem. The larger concern is the county’s communication infrastructure that would be addressed by upgrading its technology and joining the TACN network. “A lot of the portable radios that I see the deputies and EMS carry are not public safety grade radios and they don’t last five, seven or ten years but the biggest problem we have in the county right now is the infrastructure piece of this like the piece on Short Mountain, Snow Hill, and in the Jefferson community. These are the pieces we can’t get fixed if there is a major problem. What we have is very antiquated technology,” said Mullinax.
With the new technology, Mullinax explained that if a site goes down (such as at Short Mountain), the county could transmit off other towers. “In our immediate area and around us there are tower sites all over the place including two on Short Mountain, and one in Cookeville, Mount Defiance near Watertown, and one in Sparta and we have been roaming off these towers. If we were to take a lightning strike at our own tower on Short Mountain, we would be down for a significant amount of time without the new technology. There is also a great edge to being with TACN as far as maintenance of this new equipment. If we had a tornado come through and take out all of our radio equipment, it would not be our problem. It would be the state of Tennessee’s problem. We wouldn’t have to absorb that cost,” said Mullinax.
At the last workshop meeting when Mullinax presented his request, only half the commissioners were in attendance to hear the presentation. Commissioner Tony Luna, who was at that meeting, asked Thursday night if a special called commission meeting could be held prior to January 19 to give all fourteen commissioners another chance to attend to learn more about the issue and the Motorola proposal before being asked to vote on it. Commissioner Myron Rhody added that county department heads should also be included in that meeting.
Commissioner Tom Chandler admonished the commission to think about the issue thoroughly because after seven years, when these radios are paid for and the warranty expires, they may have to be replaced putting the county in the position of having to go through this process again.
“This subject is bigger than just buying some radios,” said Chandler. “There was an issue raised in our audit report about centralized purchasing. To me this looks like a good example for why we should have centralized purchasing. I’m not necessarily saying whether I am going to vote yeah or nay on this particular thing. There is a maintenance issue here with these radios that will spread across the departments. I believe the departments are probably going to raise some issues in regard to that. Radios are expensive. My understanding is that the warranty on these radios is seven years. I think the deal Motorola offered was like $346,000 per year for seven years. Guess what? We are going to be paying $346,000 a year forever because in seven years these radios are going to need to be replaced. And by the way, these radios are not going to be priced at $10,000 each then. They may be $12,500 each or some other number. We need to be conscious of that and we need to be looking at this as a county as to how this is going to be handled. I believe there might be some value in putting the purchase of this in the 911 area because maybe there is some way there to get some funding for the maintenance in support of this through the state. If we were to do this in a centralized way, where does it set in the budget for the county” asked Commissioner Chandler.
Commissioner Daniel Cripps asked that the proposal by Mullinax and Motorola be made available to the commission in writing, and he asked County Mayor Adcock if other and possible better financing options (perhaps through a local bank) could be explored other than through Motorola.
“Would you be willing to call around to some of the banks and find out what the options are for us,” asked County Mayor Adcock
“Whether or not they will tell me I don’t know. I would think that would be something for the internal government,” Cripps responded.
“I’ll work with you on it. We can work on it together if that is something you want to pursue,” replied County Mayor Adcock.
Commissioner Jeff Barnes inquired about the possibility of a seven-year bond to fund the radio purchase.
“I did mention it to Steve Bates (county fiscal agent) about putting it on a bond and he thought that probably would not be the best idea because with the more things you put on there (debt) it may hurt our bond rating. We are already talking about potentially big projects with the jail and school so he (Bates) said because of that it probably would not be best to do a bond for the radios although it is possible to do it. He said it would probably be better to do the Motorola financing plan instead,” said County Mayor Adcock.
Again, even if the county makes the radio purchase through Motorola and enters into their seven-year financing plan, the county will still have to find the funds to pay for it.
“This isn’t going to be paid for with money we have there for it. I think we are able to do the first year because of the $300,000 contribution 911 is offering to us. I believe we (county) could probably supply the other $46,000 out of our capital projects fund for the first year but it’s a matter for the budget committee to find out what our revenue source is going to be to continue those $346,000 payments for the remaining six years. We will have to pull pennies (property tax rate cents) from something else at budget time to pay for it or find new pennies (local revenue) to make up for it. It (funding) has to come from somewhere,” said County Mayor Adcock.