Ohio: Cost Limits High-Tech Radio Use
Randy Ludlow, The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)
Even in a small city such as Logan, it wasn’t always possible for police officers and dispatchers to talk to one another over the low-tech radio system.
There were dead spots, and trying to use a portable radio in a large building, such as the hospital or a big-box store, resulted only in static.
The communication glitches, long a problem for first-responders throughout Ohio, threatened the safety of both the public and officers, said Police Chief Aaron Miller.
But thanks to state grant money, police in the Hocking County seat upgraded in April to the high-tech Multi-Agency Radio Communication System, known as MARCS. Officers can talk, crystal-clear, to any agency in Ohio that also has MARCS radios.
It was like trading in a sputtering Model T for a modern Cadillac with all the toys, Miller said. “Officers feel much more comfortable with this system. It would be great if everyone was on MARCS.”
But the problem that long confronted Logan in upgrading its communication system — money — is shared statewide by hundreds of police agencies and fire departments that still are stuck with not-always-reliable radios.
A decade after the MARCS system was expanded beyond state agencies after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, about half of Ohio’s police and fire departments lack the digital radios.
About 1,200 public-safety agencies in Ohio have at least one of the 48,000 radios, said Daryl Anderson, director of the MARCS system operated by the Ohio Department of Administrative Services.
With that number of radios in the field, the original $297 million system, which uses more than 200 towers, is at capacity. A $90 million bond issue will finance an upgrade to accommodate 128,000 total radios by early 2015, Anderson said.
“The biggest benefit is interoperability. You never know when a state trooper is going to need to talk directly to an EMA (Emergency Management Agency) person, a deputy sheriff, a volunteer firefighter,” Anderson said.
The cost of the communication and data system — each radio costs more than $2,000 and carries a $20 monthly operating fee — remains a problem. But thanks to grants, few public-safety agencies pay full price, Anderson said.
Scott Skeldon, chief of Union County’s Jerome Township Fire Department and the MARCS “guru” of the Ohio Fire Chiefs’ Association, said the radios have proved their value by, for example, giving the ability to talk to other MARCS-enabled agencies during July’s devastating derecho windstorm. His county’s first responders used the first local test system, in 2002.
However, money for communication upgrades remains scarce among smaller police and fire departments.
Even Columbus police and firefighters and the Franklin County sheriff’s office do not use the system for their primary radio traffic because that would require thousands of radios. Instead, Columbus police have about 300 of the MARCS-enabled radios to allow commanders and others to communicate with other public-safety agencies.
Skeldon supports legislation to have the state pick up the user fees, which total $240 per radio per year. State administrators have toyed with various tax options to cover the tab for local agencies but never have found a funding solution.
Jerry Perrigo, chief deputy of the Fairfield County sheriff’s office, calls MARCS “the Cadillac of radio systems.” Yet, his county will have to make do with its current radio system, which is pocked with dead spots, both indoors and out.
“The problem is, we have 13 fire departments to change all their radios out, Lancaster (police), Pickerington (police). … That’s $1.8 million (for radios) countywide and $16,000 a month in fees. We just don’t have the funds,” he said.
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