Counties shouldn’t count on state radio aid, senator warns

Local governments planning to upgrade their radio systems to meet a federal mandate might not look to the state for financial help.

“At this particular point I would say the chances are going down each day, just based on the fact that we're in the final three weeks of the session,” state Sen. Merlin Bartz, R-Grafton, said today.

Bartz is a member of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, where a bill to help counties “narrowband” their radio systems is awaiting a hearing. The measure would boost the state's monthly surcharge on cell phones from 65 cents to $1, with the additional revenue going to assist counties' narrowbanding cost.

Linn County supervisors are to vote this afternoon on the county's share of an $18.2 million upgrade designed and funded jointly with Cedar Rapids and Marion. The county's cost would come to$7,382,495 – about $1.4 million less if the county leaves local police and fire departments to fund their own costs.

Bartz doesn't like that the legislation gives the fund's administrator authority to distribute the fund.

“From the perspective of fairness we could impose this surcharge on all of the wireless lines in the state, and the administrator could take the $9 million gathered the first year and give it to one county,” he said. “My major concern with the bill is we're giving way to much power to the administrator  to determine where the need is.”

Linn County's case wouldn't be helped by voters' defeat last November of a proposal to raise its land-line surcharge from 25 cents to $1 monthly.

“They are actually (charging) the lowest land-line surcharge in the state,” Bartz said.