The Shawano County Finance Committee put replacement of Sheriff’s Department radios on the fast track this week.
The committee voted 4-0, with Supervisor Marlin Noffke absent, to recommend that the County Board free up $214,408 to replace 50 radios — 34 in patrol vehicles and 16 portable radios — that do not work with the department’s new digital simulcast system.
The measure will go to the board Aug. 28.
The resolution includes using $86,000 from the gaming funds received annually from the Ho-Chunk tribe and $128,408 from the general fund.
Sheriff Randy Wright reminded the committee Monday that he alerted the County Board in October 2012 that new radios would be needed as the board debated whether to borrow $758,565 for telecommunications upgrades.
“We warned that Vilas, Marinette and Oconto counties’ radios were not working with the new system, the same type of radios we have in our squads right now,” Wright said.
Due to the older radios’ limitations with the simulcast system, the transmission coverage of Shawano County is only 40 percent, a significant drop from the 70 percent coverage the Sheriff’s Department had before changing over to the simulcast system. Once the new radios are programmed into the system, Wright expects the coverage to jump to 95 percent.
Wright said his deputies are out there now riding on “a whim and a prayer.”
He said department technicians tried several times to get the radios to work with the new system but were unsuccessful.
Supervisor Jerry Erdmann, County Board chairman, voted for funding the radios but said the County Board may have been misled when it approved purchasing the simulcast system.
“I think we’ve been led down the rosy path with this simulcast,” Erdmann said.
Wright disputed that, reminding Erdmann of his warning to the County Board 10 months ago. He said the newer radios work fine with the new system.
“It was that the people we informed did not listen to what we were informing them,” Wright said.
The original plan was to tap the general fund to pay for the radios, but the Tribal Affairs Committee on Aug. 4 recommended using $86,000 from the more than $105,000 in Ho-Chunk funds held by the county.
Supervisor Sandy Steinke, Finance Committee member and Tribal Affairs Committee chairwoman, said the radios were seen as a top priority by Tribal Affairs.
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