Committee hears measure to change billing for state law‑enforcement radio system; hearing held at sponsor's request

The Agriculture and Veterans Affairs Committee heard testimony on Senate Bill 2114 on proposed changes to how local law enforcement and dispatch centers are billed for access to the state law‑enforcement telecommunications system.

Darren Anderson, director of State Radio in the Department of Emergency Services, told the committee the system hosts the state message switch and connects to the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (NLETS). "If you got pulled over ... the officer goes and plugs that into his computer in the car," Anderson said, describing routine queries for driver and vehicle information.

Anderson told the committee the current statute places billing on cities and counties under a flat fee structure tied to population thresholds and that those flat rates have not been adjusted since 2017. He described how the bill would move the billing from a fixed monthly per‑terminal fee to a percentage‑based billing model tied to the same population thresholds, saying the change is intended to better align local charges with actual cost fluctuations and give State Radio…