Rockwall County officials expressed an interest in developing a new shared system that would meet the needs of both the county and the five cities within the county. Those cities included Rockwall, Heath, Fait, Royse City and McLendon-Chisholm.
The county and cities had been using a combination of different radio technologies to support emergency services, public works functions and law enforcement. But the existing systems were aging and not able to
communicate with each other effectively. To move the project forward, the county requested a radio system proposal from an LMR provider. The proposal, as delivered, was intended to serve the needs of all of the entities at a cost of $10.2 million.
Meeting Collective Land Mobile Radio Needs
After receiving the proposal, the Commissioners’ Court realized that the county didn’t have the in-house expertise to responsibly judge the merits of the proposal. They therefore decided to contract with Black & Veatch in order to gain the expertise needed to perform an independent assessment of their communications needs and then evaluate the vendor’s proposal.
After appropriate review, Black & Veatch found that the proposed system would not meet the agencies’ operational needs and was overpriced by 20 percent. The county requested that Black & Veatch develop system alternatives that would meet the collective needs. In doing so, Black & Veatch addressed the issues of system reliability, varying terrain, radio coverage throughout the county and in buildings, and the ability to communicate and coordinate between departments and the six different governmental entities.
Black & Veatch helped the county and participating cities develop an RFP that was used to solicit proposals from multiple LMR providers. Rockwall County, Black & Veatch and the five cities jointly reviewed the new proposals. The county decided to contract with a vendor that offered the robust system needed to bring modern public safety radio communications to Rockwall County. But the best part was its cost – a full $2 million less than the original sole-source proposal.
The new system contract provided a system that was much more within the county’s expectations, and included acceptance testing that would help guarantee that performance would meet the specifications. Key factors in successful system replacements include involving the system users and stakeholders in the project from beginning to end. It is also vital to assemble a project team that includes the latest technical expertise to address the many project issues that will certainly arise.
Proper planning and execution is essential to the successful system transition. An experienced consultant will be extremely knowledgeable of public safety operations, all project phases and technical components, and will be able to help guide the process to a successful completion.
