The Shawano County Sheriff’s Department will get 50 new radios to replace models made obsolete by the county’s new simulcast system.
The County Board voted 19-6 Wednesday to spend $210,840 to purchase the radios — 34 in patrol vehicles and 16 portable units — that have little to no coverage under the new digital system.
The winning bid was submitted by Wausau-based Northway Communications, which came in $3,568 less than the original proposal by Motorola Solutions, based in Illinois.
The county was going to spend $214,408 with Motorola Solutions to replace the radios, but the County Board halted that plan in August, sending it back to the committee because the project had not been put out for bids.
The Public Safety Committee received the bids Sept. 18 and had listed Northway’s bid as $197,198.42. However, according to communications specialist Jeff Schuh, the price did not include removal and installation costs, which were included in the Motorola bid.
Schuh added that the Sheriff’s Department tried looking for grants to fund the radio replacement but has been unable to find any.
The money will come from the general fund ($124,840) and Ho-Chunk gaming compact funds ($86,000).
Supervisor Mike McClelland, who voted against the resolution, objected to taking money out of the general fund to pay for the radios. He made a motion to tap the sheriff’s carryover fund and about $80,000 not used when the courthouse roof project came in under budget. His motion died for a lack of a second.
Once the simulcast system starts transmitting with the new radios, the Sheriff’s Department anticipates having 95 percent coverage of the county. Department officials had warned that not replacing the radios could put the lives of law enforcement and citizens in danger if communication was poor to non-existent.
Schuh said on Thursday that it will take about two weeks for the radios to arrive, and installation should be completed by early November. The digital simulcast system is expected to be fully functional by the end of the year.
“The existing (analog) system we have only gives us 40 percent coverage because we only have one transmitter in the center of the county,” Schuh said. “We went to a simulcast system that gives us five sites throughout the county to transmit from, which gives better coverage in the county.”
The county went to the new system in response to an unfunded federal mandate intended to quadruple the availability of communications channels available for public safety operations by decreasing the coverage area, or bandwidth, of each tower.
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