Adjutant General outlines multimission budget: 911 dispatch upgrades, disaster relief access, Guard facilities and staffing requests

Mitch Johnson, Adjutant General and Director of Emergency Services, told the Senate Appropriations Government Operations Division that the department encompasses four distinct components — National Guard, State Radio, Homeland Security and Civil Air Patrol — each with different missions and funding sources and that that structure complicates budget decisions.

“We’re 4 different departments inside 1 department,” Adjutant General Mitch Johnson said in his opening remarks, asking lawmakers to consider federal‑matching rules and varying federal and state funding streams when they review House Bill 1016.

State Radio (soon to be the State Emergency Communications Center) director Darren Anderson testified that the division dispatches 26 counties for 9‑1‑1 and serves as an overflow backup for other centers during major incidents. Anderson asked for one‑time special infrastructure funding to add redundancy to the state law‑enforcement query/ message switch and to update audio‑recording systems used to archive radio and 9‑1‑1 traffic; the request was described in testimony as roughly $525,000 (Anderson also referenced $495,000 later in the same explanation when describing the compatible recorder costs). He said much of the state radio budget is a roughly 50/50 split of general and special funds and that updated equipment is required to remain compatible…