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County outlines radio tower timeline and creates radio technician position
Summary
Administrator gave a schedule for the county radio tower project to be fully functional Dec. 31 with cutover in early January and full testing in 2026. Committee approved forwarding a new radio tower technician position and related staffing changes to the full county board.
Richland County staff told the Executive and Finance Committee that the county radio tower project is entering its final installation and testing phase and recommended a new county radio tower technician position to maintain the system.
The administrator said tower crews and Gencom would install antennas and microwave equipment in November, Gencom would configure the network from Dec. 1–15, and testing would occur Dec. 15–30, with the system expected to be fully functional on Dec. 31. Staff said the county would not necessarily cut over on that exact date but planned to do an early-January cutover and then reprogram radios in December and January; full testing of the system is anticipated in 2026. The administrator said the county wants to protect an $8,000,000 investment in the system.
To support ongoing operation, staff requested a new radio tower technician position; the committee reviewed the job description, asked about physical requirements (lifting up to 100 pounds for equipment work on towers), and approved forwarding all listed job-description changes to the full county board. The committee’s action to forward job descriptions included reassigning emergency-management duties (removing ambulance responsibilities), converting some contracted positions to county positions (ambulance administrative secretary), creating an HR director position, and restructuring child and youth services positions.
The committee voted to send the job descriptions to the full county board for final approval.
