A new countywide emergency communications system will be better than initially expected, officials said regarding the terms of the contracts with Harris Corp. approved by the Floyd County Commission on Wednesday.

The radio network — funded through a $26.7 million earmark in the 2009 special purpose, local option sales tax package — will cost $23.6 million.

“This allows Floyd County to move forward on a time­line to meet the Jan. 1, 2013 deadline,” said County Attorney Tommy Manning, whose office spent the past month hammering out details of the system and software licensing agreements.

The Federal Communications Commission is requiring local governments to narrow-band their radio signals by 2013. The Harris system is designed to be easily modified when an expected second phase of the bandwidth shift is announced, Assistant County Manager Blaine Williams said.

County Commissioners also approved an additional $91,355 for Tusa Consulting Services, based on an expansion of the company’s responsibilities.

County Manager Kevin Poe said the scope of the work has grown since a $250,000 agreement was crafted in February 2010 for design and construction oversight on an 800 megahertz digital trunking system.

Among the additions announced Wednesday:

An increase to 10 tower sites from the original seven;

The testing of nearly 170 critical buildings — instead of an expected 50 or so — to ensure signals will be received inside;

A back-up prime site;

An upgrade to a full OC-3 protected bandwidth, which provides extremely high speed fiber optic connectivity;

A battery back-up system that allows unlimited site operations for eight hours and full connectivity for 24 hours;

A National Public Safety radio subsystem for mutual aid activities; and

A fire alert and jail communications radio subsystem.

“There are a few more bells and whistles on the radios, too,” Williams said.

Tusa is not billing the county for 291 hours its experts spent on a “Best and Final Round” settlement between the two bidders — Harris and Motorola Corp.

According to the Tusa report, the first proposal from Motorola didn’t meet the specifications and Harris’ proposal exceeded the budget. Williams said both companies were given copies of their scoring sheets and 30 days to rework their bids.

The County Commission released the final-round ratings after approving the Harris and Tusa contracts.

Motorola netted a 95.15 percent rating compared with Harris’ 99.16 percent score in Tusa’s analysis. Seventy percent of the score was based on the technical offerings and 30 percent was based on the overall cost of the system.

A committee made up of representatives from the local public safety and first responder agencies that will use the new system also recommended Harris unanimously.

Motorola won on cost, with a $20.9 million price tag compared to $22.9 million on Harris’ basic proposal.

However, Harris racked up 102.52 percent of the possible points for technology — scoring extra for the amount and level of training it will provide users, and for offering a local service company with extensive experience.

Williams Communication, which is not connected with Floyd’s assistant county manager, provides similar service for the state of Florida.

“Additionally, Williams is equipped and staffed to provide disaster recovery services (Hurricane Katrina 2005 most recent example),” the report states.

The company plans to open a service hub in Floyd County.

Motorola scored 93.07 percent on the technical side, but the company’s proposal missed several critical requirements, according to the report.



See the radio network evaluation results.