TYLERTOWN — Walthall County supervisors had already approved buying state network-accessible radios for the county’s fire departments, but they were still discussing how to pay for them Monday.
They also still need to get approval from the state to exceed a legal spending limit.
The board approved buying radios at less than the state contract price if the radios provide the functionality needed by the fire departments, but fire and 911 officials have decided the state contract radios would provide better service.
The price for the more than 100 radios, both truck-installed and handheld, requested by the county fire service and 911, plus work in the county dispatch office to put the radios into service, is about $236,000.
The state limits all purchases under state contract by any single entity to $200,000 per year.
Assistant District Attorney Tim Jones, chair of the county 911 board, said getting past that hurdle and buying the radios would allow the county to get rid of the repeater tower and pagers now used by the fire departments.
Both the repeater and its generator are old and will need to be replaced if the fire departments do not make the switch to the state-networked radios.
“The generator is at the end of its life,” Jones said. “It wouldn’t crank during the last storm.”
Jones said the bid includes a redundant base station, in case the main station in central dispatch at the jail becomes unavailable, along with training on the equipment and how to program needed frequencies into the radios.
The $236,000 quote includes a $200 discount per unit, he said.
Board President Larry Montgomery asked if 911 could shoulder part of the cost, and how much money the 911 department had in its account.
Jones said 911 could bear some of the cost, but noted that the radio console in dispatch and the jail’s generator will both need to be replaced in the foreseeable future.
“If we don’t have the money for those, we’ll have to come to you for it,” he said.
Jones said the 911 account typically has from $150,000 to $250,000 in it. County comptroller Cherie Provost said the 911 account had a little more than $281,000 in it that day.
Montgomery suggested $75,000 of the radio cost come from 911, which Jones and Sheriff Kyle Breland, a 911 board member, said sounded acceptable.
The remainder of the cost, about $161,000, would come from federal American Rescue Plan Act funding.
