Payne County Commissioners consider $1 million radio package compatible with Stillwater encrypted system

Jul. 23—Payne County Emergency Management has been in discussions with Stillwater and the other communities and rural fire departments in the area for several years as it plans a countywide communications network for emergency responders. The county commissioners plan to buy the system — including radios, dispatch equipment and transmission towers — using funds from $15.8 million in federal money Payne County will receive under the American Rescue Plan Act.

The county received an estimate based on state contract pricing from Motorola Solutions for almost $10 million but won't be able to enter into a contract until it receives the second half of the ARPA funds in October.

The commissioners reconsidered moving forward with a no-bid contract with Motorola Solutions after being approached by another vendor, L3Harris, and agreed in May to hire TUSA Consulting to develop a needs assessment and write a request for proposals so the county can open competitive bidding on the project.

The countywide system includes new radios for Payne County Emergency Management and all fire departments and police agencies except the City of Stillwater. County equipment will need to include keys to decrypt encrypted radio signals, so the various agencies can communicate with Stillwater's police, fire and emergency management departments. Dispatch centers in the county will also be upgraded.

The City of Stillwater entered into a no-bid state contract in December with Motorola Solutions to provide the city's police, fire and emergency management departments with an 800 MHz band emergency radio network at a cost of $6.7 million for its portion of what was originally envisioned as a system that would serve the entire county.

All Stillwater agency transmissions will be encrypted, which prevents radios and scanners that aren't part of its network from being able to hear them.

Rob Hill, Emergency Management Director for the City of Stillwater, said city officials had hoped to have the system up and running by August but due to supply chain issues, it won't be operational until possibly November.

Chris Reding, Chairman of the Payne County Board of Commissioners, is anxious to get radios for the county's emergency management and Sheriff's office that will be compatible with the encrypted radio system serving Stillwater's various emergency responders because the agencies are often called on to work together.

Area law enforcement agencies often respond to the same incidents. The Stillwater City Council approved a resolution in October 2021 updating the mutual aid agreement that gives the Stillwater Police Department more enforcement capability outside the city limits when another agency requests help.

Stillwater Police, Payne County Sheriff's deputies and Oklahoma Highway Patrol officers all responded to a recent shooting in Stillwater, where the limitations of the current communications system was highlighted.

Last week, Reding asked the Payne County Budget Board — a body comprised of all elected county officials that oversees expenditures, personnel policies and other actions that impact the county budget — to use more than $40,000 from the three-eighths cent county sales tax fund to buy Payne County Emergency Management five radios from Motorola ahead of the needs assessment and RFP.

The county's radio project is running about a year behind Stillwater's and its emergency managers won't be able to communicate with Stillwater agencies after the city's fully-encrypted system goes online in late fall, Deputy Emergency Management Director Troy Choplin told the Budget Board.

"We have some older 800 mhz radios we could use, if Stillwater didn't want to encrypt," Emergency Management Director Jeff Kuhn said.

Sheriff Joe Harper said his department, which already has to use two different radios to communicate with other agencies, would also be unable to communicate with Stillwater. He said he was not making a request at that time because it would cost up to $1 million to equip his entire department with compatible radios.

The Budget Board rejected the proposal, saying ARPA funds are being used to buy the system as a whole, so any equipment that's part of the system should come from the same funding source. The Budget Board recommended the advance purchase be put to the Payne County Board of Commissioners for consideration.

At Monday's regular weekly meeting of the Commissioners, Reding scheduled an agenda item titled: "Radios for Emergency Management and Payne County Sheriff's Office for Required Communication with Stillwater PD."

The commissioners were presented with a quote from Motorola to supply 68 dash-mounted radios and 57 handheld radios at a total cost of $991,987.09. That total included a 26% discount under the company's proposed no-bid state contract.

Reding told the News Press the listed equipment would ensure both the Payne County Sheriff's Office and Payne County Emergency Management can still communicate with agencies in Stillwater after November.

"That's the bottom-line, critical radios," he said.

Due to the size of the proposal, District 1 Commissioner Zach Cavett moved to table the proposal and District 3 Commissioner Rocky Blasier seconded. The item was tabled.

On Tuesday, three representatives from TUSA met with the Payne County Radio Communications Committee, a group recently organized to advise the commissioners on the radio system.

TUSA owner and CEO Dean Hart, Senior Project Manager Dennis Ward and Senior Consultant Norm Folger asked for input from the committee, whose members represent various interested agencies and organizations in the county.

Hart discussed the needs assessment and the process for writing specifications for the request for proposals. That document will guide the vendors as they develop their bids.

He told the committee he expects to receive a volume discount from the vendors based on the number of radios included in the system.

At this time, committee chairman Troy Choplin is planning to include radios for Cushing, Perkins, Glencoe, Yale, Ripley and other rural fire departments, as well as the Payne County Sheriff's office and Payne County Emergency Management. Preliminary planning estimates approximately 685 radios would be needed.

If the pre-purchase for the Sheriff's Office and Emergency Management is approved, those radios would be removed from the total package.

Buying those radios from Motorola would not lock the county into buying the entire system from Motorola, Hart said. Equipment from any of the major brands that operates on 800 mhz under P25 interoperability standards would be compatible.

If the commissioners purchase the radios piecemeal, they will lose some of the volume discount vendors would give in bidding for the entire network, TUSA representatives told the News Press when asked to review the quote from Motorola.

They pointed out the county might only be looking at waiting about a month if Stillwater's system isn't ready until November. The expected timeline for the county system should allow for a decision by the end of the year, which might provide further savings because companies are often more motivated to make sales at the end of a quarter or the end of the year, they said.

"If the commissioners can wait, they can get the radios for a lot lower price," Ward said.

The commissioners may consider the partial purchase from Motorola at their July 28 meeting.