By Robert Travis Scott
Times-Picayune
Copyright 2008 Times-Picayune
BATON ROUGE, La. — The state plans to move into the next phase of deploying a portable radio system that eventually will link law enforcement and other first responders across jurisdictions statewide, Louisiana emergency preparedness officials announced Wednesday.
The executive branch spending plan to be introduced Friday by Gov. Bobby Jindal will include $34 million for the interoperability upgrade, an increase from $14 million for the program in the current-year budget.
In addition to a more unified system, state and local officials are upgrading to a more versatile technology.
The money, which is from the state general fund, will be targeted at central and north Louisiana. The Legislature will determine spending priorities when it prepares the state budget during the spring session.
Areas roughly south of Interstate 10 already use thousands of the new radio sets backed by towers. A large portion of those systems were financed by the federal government after Hurricane Katrina.
The new systems being proposed could be put to use in the southern region if emergency personnel from central and north Louisiana are called upon to assist their counterparts in responding to a coastal-area disaster.
Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the pitfalls of poor interagency communications, as State Police, sheriff’s offices and police departments, firefighters, medical workers and public works personnel struggled to coordinate their efforts.
The Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, along with State Police and the Statewide Interoperable Communication System Executive Committee, have been working on the upgrade.
After the storm, some parish law enforcement agencies and fire districts that had not received the federally funded radios balked at the high cost of implementing the new system and disagreed with State Police over the direction of the state’s interoperability plan.
State Police Superintendent Col. Michael Edmonson and Louisiana Sheriff’s Association President Hal Turner both said at a press conference Wednesday that the different agencies had established a better working relationship and more trust.
Edmonson said the news was not only a “big day” for Louisiana but “it’s a bigger day for law enforcement that we can be on the same page.”
Among those making the announcement were Mark Cooper, the state’s homeland security director; Jude Savoie, president of the Louisiana Fire Chiefs Association; and Chad Leger, president of the Louisiana Police Chiefs Association.
Part of the new formula is for the state to pick up a sizable chunk of the tab for the systems. Cooper said the state will be paying the user fees for the systems used by local agencies.
Law enforcement officials experienced problems with their communications system during a march in Jena in September related to a racial controversy in the small central Louisiana town. As a result, the officials were able to correct and fine-tune their communication system.
The interoperability system was tested during Mardi Gras and the NBA All-Star game this year and the system performed well, Edmonson and Cooper said.