Wednesday, October 2, 2024–11:40 a.m.
-David Crowder, WRGA News-
In 2013, Rome and Floyd County switched to a new 800 MHz communications system, which includes ten towers and 98 percent coverage anywhere in the county—from the Pocket to Cave Spring. Floyd County Manager Jamie McCord told the Rome-Floyd Joint Services Committee on Tuesday, it is time to renegotiate the contract with Williams Communications.
$25 million was included in the 2006 special purpose, local option sales tax for the communications system, which McCord admitted is expensive to operate. However, in light of what happened in Florida, South Georgia, and Western Carolina with Hurricane Helene, he is thankful we have it.
“We dodged a bullet,” he said. “I was as nervous as I have ever been at 4 a.m. Friday morning. I was thinking we were going to have a catastrophic event, but the storm moved to the east. This all started with a tornado in Wax in 2003 or 2004. It was terrible. We couldn’t communicate. We had a loss of life. I’m not saying that led to it, but it was a terrible situation.”
With more than 1,500 radios, the system is used by police, fire, EMS, public works, and many external agencies. What each pays per radio varies-ranging from $7.60 to $37.00. McCord is proposing that the monthly fee be increased to $40.98, which would be the same for everyone.
“When everything was under warranty, it was a little different scenario. We had six years of warranty on radios, towers, all the backup systems, all the repeaters, microwaves, and so forth. So, now we are getting to the point with an eleven-year-old system it’s time to start replacing some things. The county is committed to the capital expenses, but we feel like there should be a more equitable monthly payment to operate it to where we are not subsidizing all these external agencies.”
Rome City Manager Sammy Rich agreed that the communications system is vital, but he did have one concern regarding the fee increase.
“Pick any random city department, and let’s say they have 20 radios, and then they get this new budget impact they could say they will just stop using 10 of them,” Rich said. “If that happens between city and county, then the overall number will be different. It’s almost like you reshuffle the deck and try to figure out what the real number is. If it’s going up, some people will probably use less.”
There are plans to hold a stakeholder meeting to get an idea of the exact number of radios that will continue to be used.
McCord added that the final cost to operate the system will not change, whether you divide it by 1,500 radios or 1,000 radios. He said the goal would be to have the new rates go into effect in January.