Published: March 16, 2009 10:31 pm         

Bill designed to create state radio system worries local officials about the cost burden

Local emergency management officials are concerned about a bill recently passed by the Oklahoma Senate.

Senate Bill 1153 is designed to allow the Oklahoma Department of Homeland Security create a state radio system on which all police, fire, EMS and emergency management officials will operate.

“There’s an 800 megahertz radio system that is already installed along I-44,” said Woodward County Emergency Management Director Matt Lehenbauer. “That’s the band your cell phone operates on.”

Lehenbauer said the bill would mandate the state expand that particular system.

“The Office of Homeland Security wants to put in a statewide communication system ... over the 800 MHz band,” he said. “We (currently) talk on a lower frequency ... it travels a lot further, plus it’s a lot less expensive.”

The first step in implementing the new system would be building more towers to expand the desired frequency.

“The infrastructure alone is going to be expensive,” said Gary Naugle Jr., a volunteer firefighter in Lahoma and the town’s emergency management director.

Lehenbauer said it is not just the towers that will be expensive. New radios will be required statewide, and that cost might be put upon the municipalities.

“You can only run the (proposed system) using one brand of radio,” he said.

Lehenbauer said radios he currently uses run on a 130 MHz radio system and cost between $300 and $400. Radios on the new system would cost approximately $4,500 each.

“If they get this statewide system, they’re going to leave it up to local communities to buy the radios,” Lehenbauer said.

Garfield County Emergency Management Director Mike Honigsberg said the current tri-county communications system covering Garfield, Grant and Alfalfa counties works well and reaches out beyond the area.

“We have worked hard to get this system doing what it’s doing now, and we’re going to be enhancing it in the near future,” he said.

“The system that we have seems to work quite well right now,” said Naugle.

Lehenbauer said emergency management departments across the state and the nation are continuing to work to find ways to enhance communications. Some of the possibilities they are working on include Internet and satellite radio capabilities.

But Honigsberg said being under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security could hinder efforts of emergency management departments in the state.

Rep. Mike Jackson, R-Enid, said according to Senate fiscal staff, the new system would not use any money from the state budget. Fire departments, law enforcement, EMS and emergency management departments would have to use their federal dollars to fund the upgrades.

Jackson also said it is his understanding the new system would not be required immediately, but any purchases after the new system is set up would have to fall under Homeland Security guidelines.

“It basically requires them to follow Homeland Security guidelines in purchasing future equipment,” Jackson said.

“They’re not thinking about the small fire departments who have to have chili suppers to purchase fire equipment,” Lehenbauer said. “(The bill is) not cost-effective or practical. There are other ways to do it. The problem is they are fixated on this one system.”

However Jackson said the content of the bill still has time to change.

“We’re still very early in the process,” he said. “They’ve already stricken the title so that means it is going to go to conference.”

If the bill passes the House, it will then go to conference committee, be revised and then brought to another vote of the Senate and the House.

Jackson said the vote on the revised bill probably would occur in May.

The bill passed the Senate March 9 by a 32-14 vote.