LITTLE ROCK — Little Rock city directors signed off Tuesday on an $8.7 million emergency communications system to replace one for which city officials can no longer find parts.
The system upgrade played a major role in the city’s recent sales tax campaign that asked voters to increase the local tax from a half-percent to 1.5 percent.
The tax plan included a $9 million earmark for replacing the 27-year-old analog radio system that was so antiquated that the city had to call repairmen out of retirement to help fix it after a lightning strike damaged it last year.
Because Little Rock’s department is the largest police force in the state, most of the agencies in central Arkansas use the city’s communications system. Those agencies — North Little Rock, Pulaski County, Metropolitan Emergency Medical Services, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and each area hospital — split a $428,000 annual maintenance fee for the system’s upkeep.
Little Rock wouldn’t have been able to upgrade the system if the sales tax had not passed in September. The city’s first new revenue will start rolling into City Hall in March.
City Manager Bruce Moore said the purchase will be paid for next year and in 2013. Its installment should start early next year, he said.
“It’s really going to improve the lives and safety of the citizens,” Mayor Mark Stodola said about the replacement project.
Little Rock is purchasing the system, which includes dispatch consoles and signal relay equipment, from Motorola Solutions. The city bought its analog system from the same company, which has served as the city’s sole-source provider of radio equipment and maintenance services for the past 21 years.
Arkansas, Pages 14 on 12/21/2011