The user fee's associated with the MPSCS are on a tiered scale. No one currently pay's the $200 per radio, per year, rate except for Lapeer County EMS and they are working on reducing their fee's to a lower level. Currently these fees are paid by the individual department using the radio.
 
When Saginaw County moved to the MPSCS as their primary system, they brought infrastructure to the system and the user fee's were waived for 10 years. Likewise, Genesee County also had their user fee's waived for about 13 years. By the users adding infrastructure to the MPSCS, it bolsters their system with increased coverage and in return they waive the user fees for a period of time. Lapeer County will negotiate the same type of deal to have our user fee's waived as well.

The paging system for the fire service is not part of the MPSCS. That is an independent VHF system that will be built and maintained by the County of Lapeer, Central Dispatch. It is a proposed 10 site system to ensure maximum coverage throughout all areas of the county. This will compensate for the currently lacking coverage of the aging system we have today.

Oakland County is on their own digital system called Open Sky which was started in 2002 and is not yet completed. Oakland County doesn’t have much interoperability with anyone else.

CLEMIS (Courts and Law Enforcement Management Information System) is not a radio system, but a localized records management system similar to AICS (Automated Incident Capture System) which is used by law enforcement in Lapeer County and much of the state to do their reports on. Both systems are irrelevant in the proposed millage request. Central Dispatch uses neither system as we are not a law enforcement agency.

The concern among the fire service in Lapeer County is not about the digital system’s abilities, but about the reliability of the current system. Our current system is at the end of it’s anticipated life expectancy and the VHF paging system is no longer supported for maintenance under contract along with the microwave system that links the three tower sites together. The nucleus of the UHF voice radio system is also no longer supported. All these unsupported systems are on a ‘as parts are available’ status. We have already had to search the country for replacement microwave parts when the system as a whole was down for several days over the Christmas and New Year’s holiday.

The proposed digital system was designed with not only the fire service in mind, but for all public safety responders and ultimately the citizens of Lapeer County. We are looking at having 97% in-building coverage county wide on a hand-held radio. That means inside the majority of all homes and businesses, the digital system will work just fine. This is accomplished by adding the necessary towers in strategic locations throughout the county to increase the coverage.

We have applied for federal grant money, but one of the stipulations was that projects had to be “shovel ready” and ours was not at that stage at the time. We have been in direct contact with Congresswoman Miller’s office who is watching for the next batch of available grants that we can apply for. When and if we are granted any money, that money will be used to supplant the cost of the millage.

Grant money is distributed from the federal government to the individual states. In Michigan, that money is then sent down to regions where committee’s are formed to decide how to spend the money. Lapeer County is one of 14 counties in our region. Grant money is not sent directly to the county to be used for anything we want.

Unfortunately, grant money is not like our individual savings accounts. No one can apply for grant money and then put it aside and save it up until a purchase is ready to be made. The rules regarding how grant money is used are very specific and do not allow for saving it up among many other things. When applying for any grant, one must have a specific item(s) already picked out, the details of it sent in with the grant application and how it is to be used. There usually comes with any approved grant request a 1 to 3 year audit trail as well. 

In addition to that, grants are competitive, meaning, that all 14 counties in our region must compete with each other for money out of the same pot. One’s counties needs are weighed against that of another counties needs, and point systems are developed to grade those needs. Once everything is worked out, the grant requests are then sent back to the state for approval. This is just a quick summary of how it works, and also know that these processes take months to years to complete before any county or agency would actually come into possession of their grant request. Currently, we are just getting ready to open the 2008 Homeland Security Grant. The cycles are always years behind.

No one entity can apply for such a large sum of money as to fund the needed replacement of our systems in any grant. Typically, at the federal level that kind of thing is called an ‘earmark’. Earmark’s are not permitted in the grant process. The hundred’s of millions of dollars available from the Department of Homeland Security can be misleading. That money is spread out across the country to the states as mentioned already and then down to the regions. Within the states and regions, the money is then divided up into subcommittee's with different needs and objectives. Not all of the money goes to communications. For example our region is about finished up with the 2007 DHS grant for communications and it only had approximately $3 million dollars to spend between 14 counties. that is the largest sum of money to come though the region.

Surcharge money is used to cover our operational costs. Currently it brings in just enough money to keep the doors open. A telephone surcharge could never generate the amount of money necessary to save up for such a large replacement project as we have need for today. We are capped at $1.55 per line, which includes landline, cell phone and voice over IP phone’s. We also do not get 100% of those fee’s from the phone company because there is always a percentage of the population who does not or cannot pay their phone bill, thus 9-1-1 does not get that share of the surcharge. Phone companies also keep 2% of the surcharge for administrative costs.

The grant money that has been awarded to Lapeer County over the years has gone to purchase many new hybrid radios capable of both analog and digital systems, new in-car computers for law enforcement, and bi-directional antenna’s to bolster the MPSCS signal in the basement of the Emergency Operations Center. It has also purchased the county’s mobile command vehicle and equipped it with the necessary items for all disciplines of public safety to use in times of major local emergencies.  All of these things have already supplanted the cost of the proposed replacement project.

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