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Commissioners review proposed municipal dispatch fees and a $55,000 encryption fix for county radios
Summary
County staff urged a move away from a uniform 5% annual increase and recommended a new fee schedule based on each municipality’s share of call volume; fire officials requested roughly $55,000 to encrypt fire/EMS channels and reprogram radios to stop public scanning apps from publishing dispatches.
St. Clair County commissioners and staff discussed a recommended revision to municipal central-dispatch fees and a request from the fire association to fund encryption and reprogramming of radios.
The chair said the county has historically applied modest percentage increases (about 5%) but that approach has not kept pace with system costs and growth. An operations presenter said the committee analyzed total call volumes for each municipality and drafted a fee schedule to allocate costs more fairly; staff said they will provide the municipalities with the fee proposal promptly so cities can incorporate the change into upcoming budgets. "We need to get the information to municipalities as soon as possible because they're doing a budget also," the Chair said.
Fire and radio-committee representatives said public scanner apps are capturing and reposting local fire and EMS dispatches, a practice they called a safety and privacy concern. A radio-committee speaker said encryption and standardized reprogramming would address both unauthorized listening and programming inconsistencies across agencies and estimated the technical fix at about $55,000. "It's estimated ... somewhere in the neighborhood of about $55,000 is the fix," the fire association representative said when describing vendor estimates for on-site and regional reprogramming.
Commissioners and staff also noted that the overall radio system carries a significant recurring maintenance bill; staff cited vendor maintenance costs around $245,000 this year with an expected increase near $265,000 next year. Commissioners agreed to place the fee recommendation on the Tuesday agenda for formal consideration and asked staff to provide municipalities with the proposed schedule quickly so cities can finalize budgets.
