Elbert County approves $78,000 supplement to cover law-enforcement radio encryption upgrades

The Elbert County Board of County Commissioners approved a supplemental appropriation of roughly $78,000 on June 25, 2025, to help the Elbert County Communications Authority (ECCA) begin a required upgrade to radio encryption for county law-enforcement radios.

Jim White, chair of the Elbert County Communications Authority, told commissioners that the current encryption method used across local law enforcement and fire radios "has been compromised" and that partner counties have scheduled a conversion deadline. He said the total county cost for the conversion is still uncertain but that, at current vendor prices, the entire conversion could cost several hundred thousand dollars; the law-enforcement portion was approximately $196,000 in White's briefing, and $74,000 of that was already placed on purchase order for Motorola upgrades.

White described the upgrade as a complex logistics problem involving multiple vendors, radio models and firmware versions. "Some of the upgrades... are keyed to a particular firmware version," White said, and added that some radios require internal hardware (an encryption module) to be installed, which requires opening the radio and adding a circuit board.

White said ECCA applied for federal Homeland Security grant funds but that those grants would not be available until October and that federal funding outlooks were uncertain. Commissioners approved the $78,000 supplement to allow the county to cover immediate law-enforcement Motorola upgrades while the authority seeks additional funding for the remaining work. The vote was taken by voice and declared carried.

White cautioned that vendors may stop supporting 15-year-old radios and that if upgrades are no longer available after an anticipated July 1 vendor change, the county would face larger replacement costs for radios that no longer receive firmware updates.