The Walworth County Board of Supervisors was set to hear, and potentially approve, a resolution Tuesday that would set the parameters for the purchase of new radios in its 911 Municipal Radio System Replacement project.
The resolution, which the Finance Committee approved County Administrator Mark Luberda to draft Nov. 17, defined how much agencies could receive out of the $2.4 million of American Rescue Plan Act money set aside by the county for the new radio system.
The project, which started several years ago, is nearing a point where the new radios can be ordered by agencies. The total of the project, including the money from ARPA, has a budget of more than $20 million.
The resolution outlined three different tiers would be used to allocate funds at a 40%, 20% and 10%, depending on how much money agencies spend.
The initial payment will be at 40% for the first $300,000 of qualifying expenditures, while Tier 2 is 20% of qualifying expenditures exceeding $300,000 but not $600,000.
Tier 3 is 10% of qualifying expenditures exceeding $600,000. Luberda said he expects most agencies to fall into the Tier 1 payments.
The county has an estimate of what they expect orders for the new radios to be, but Luberda did say that there is a contingency plan if more radios are ordered than expected.
“In order to give the agencies the ability, up front, to have a good expectation of what cost reduction to expect, the county had to assume some of that risk of what the total cost would be,” Luberda explained.
He added that agencies will get a cost savings if they can get their order in by Dec. 15, but those same agencies can add items into next year.
There will be a 45-day cutoff notice given to agencies regarding ordering to receive aid from the county.
