Forney City Council approves new $1.4 million emergency radio system

While the communications upgrade has been in the works for some time, it may be most notable that the purchase will not require borrowing money.

"We considered and evaluated a couple of different plans for how to best pay for the system," said Forney Administrative Services Director Leigh Corson. "We have some unanticipated, unassigned fund balance this year. Our revenues have come in higher than we anticipated with extreme growth in sales tax and other development-related revenue while our expenditures have remained constant. We feel that we can take that $1.4 million and move it to general funds and just pay cash for the radios."

Police chief Rick Barnes noted that the current radio system would be traded in for credit on the purchase. "They are going to give us $269,000 approximately for trade-in of the system we have," he said.

Council member Mary Penn asked for reassurance from Barnes that the new system would be better than the current system.

"I just want to make sure that this works," Penn said. "The reason I say that is because a few years ago we rented something and we've had problems ever since."

With Barnes' recommendation, the purchase was approved unanimously.

Forney fire chief Rick Townsend, whose department will also use the new system, was also glad to see the upgrade coming.

"It is state-of-the-art for what is available now," he said after the meeting. "We dispatch from the same location and share the same system. This is the direction we need to go."

Barnes also noted the new system will help the city conform with current and upcoming standards for emergency communication.

"The North Texas Council of Governments and the FCC are trying to push public safety into this 700mhz system and they have been for a long time," Barnes said after the meeting. "They are still trying to find a lot of federal and state money to do this but a lot of cities just can't. We are lucky that we are getting to take a step ahead with it.'