Deputy Commissioner Dan Basy lays out plan to spend roughly $8.5 million on public-safety communications upgrades

Deputy Commissioner Dan Basy, co-chair of the Public Safety Communications Task Force, told the Government Operations & Military Affairs Committee on March 12 that the task force has a set of prioritized recommendations for how to spend recently appropriated funds to improve statewide public-safety communications.

Basy, who said he was speaking both as the Department of Public Safety deputy commissioner and as a task-force co-chair, outlined four principal spending categories: a governance model, a computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system, cybersecurity and expanded RapidSOS/GIS functionality, and targeted land-mobile-radio (LMR) infrastructure projects. He told the committee that he would follow up with written figures to confirm the numbers he gave orally.

The task force's estimate for an independent governance board was about $1.77 million, which Basy said covered an executive director, staffing and the development of standards and certifications. He also said the department opposes creating an independent board; if the committee omits that governance setup, the roughly $1.77 million could be reallocated to other priorities in the package.

On the technology side, the task force offered a ballpark estimate of roughly $2 million for a CAD implementation (about $1 million upfront and roughly $250,000 per year in licensing, intended to cover approximately five years). Basy cautioned that no RFP had been issued and that the figure was preliminary: "we've not done an RFP yet" and the vendors' ballpark numbers could change.

For cybersecurity and expanded mapping services, including RapidSOS and state GIS resources, Basy estimated about $190,000 for the initial rollout and licensing (he cited roughly $20,000 per year for GIS and proposed a two-year licensing window as part of the larger figure).

After accounting for those items, Basy said roughly $4.5 million would remain and recommended using that money for targeted LMR infrastructure improvements in high-need areas (antennas, cabling, dispatch consoles and related site work) rather than attempting a full statewide tower buildout (which he said would cost in the order of $36 million). He described a "system of systems" approach and recommended pilot projects in places with near-term, turnkey work ready to proceed, citing Addison County as an example.

Basy also clarified a point from earlier committee discussion about a technical rescue grant: "we are not opposed to the grant program," he said, but raised concerns about putting the USAR program manager, Mike Cannon, in charge of administering a grant that could create or appear to create a conflict. That concern was raised as a committee-level composition question rather than opposition to the program itself.

Committee members pressed for confirmation of any appropriation restrictions before reallocating funds, and Basy agreed to verify whether the original appropriation had earmarks or constraints. He estimated that much of the work could be started quickly but noted that a CAD procurement could take as long as an 18-month RFP and implementation process; for other items the task force suggested a one- to 1.5-year horizon to complete the bulk of initial work.

Barb Neil, executive director of the 911 Board and co-chair of the task force, emphasized that RapidSOS is already in use within the 911 system and that expanding access via a contract amendment could happen within months: "the pieces to that, the foundations of that are already in place, so that could happen fairly quickly." Neil agreed that progress reports to the legislature were reasonable; the committee discussed seeking a status report by the next January session.

The witnesses and committee members also discussed long-term funding and equity: the task force said its first step is to set standardized dispatch expectations (training, quality assurance, protocol and certification) so that, once standards are in place, jurisdictions can consider a fair fee structure to sustain the system. Basy stressed that the appropriation discussed here is intended to benefit municipal dispatch centers as well as state systems and rejected the notion the department would use the funds solely to benefit state police operations.

No formal motions or votes were recorded during the testimony. Basy said he would provide written, verified figures by the end of the day and the committee agreed to consider the task force's recommendations, possible reallocation options, and reporting language for future status updates.