County’s public safety officials look for solutions for outdated communications system
HILLSDALE COUNTY — Hillsdale County Commissioner Brad Benzing announced Dec. 26 that public safety officials from across Hillsdale County will meet at 1 p.m. Jan. 28, 2024, at Hillsdale County Central Dispatch to discuss the ongoing need to upgrade the county’s emergency communications system to 800 MHz.
Hillsdale County currently sits on “an island” as being the only county in the tri-state region to continue operating on an outdated system that prohibits and complicates communicating with surrounding jurisdictions.
While some agencies have made the transition on their own, a bulk of the area fire departments and police departments continue to operate on the old system.
Voters turned down a $12 million ballot proposal to fund the upgrade on Aug. 2, 2022, which would have funded the upgrades that include replacing two failing communications towers in the county.
The county then lobbied State Rep. Andrew Fink and Sen. Joseph Bellino’s offices for a state appropriation to make the upgrades happen, but those efforts never came to fruition.
Benzing previously said that even if the 911 Board pulled the maximum 911 surcharge on all phones in the county at $3 per month, revenues would only increase by $170,000 a year meaning it would take approximately five years to replace the one communications tower alone.
More: Officials: State funding unlikely for upgrades to 911 radio system in Hillsdale County
More: What's next?: 800 MHz proposal rejected by voters
A server at 911 also needs to be replaced, but if other capital improvements are needed, it could lead to further complications within the local budget if outside funding is not secured.
“We’re actually going to struggle to maintain the system we have now in the future,” Benzing — a firefighter and emergency medical technician by trade — said. “We simply do not have the revenue without either an earmark or appropriation from the state or at some future point the voters approving some form of dedicated funding.”
The Hillsdale County Board of Commissioners began looking into upgrading the outdated system countywide in early 2022.
“As a firefighter and AEMT, as well as the Public Safety Chair, I am disappointed in the outcome,” Benzing said of the 2022 millage failure. “We have been discussing adopting 800 MHz radios since at least 2008, so that makes 14 years at a minimum.”
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The Hillsdale County Sheriff’s Office utilized state and federal funding to make the transition already and a number of fire departments and EMS agencies along the county’s eastern border with Lenawee County have already transitioned on their own.
The commissioners discussed using part of the $8.8 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding they received for the project, but a majority of that funding has now been earmarked and used for capital improvements of the county’s buildings, mainly at the county’s historic courthouse.
— Contact Reporter Corey Murray at cmurray@hillsdale.net or follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @cmurrayHDN.
This article originally appeared on Hillsdale Daily News: County’s public safety officials look for solutions for comms system
