County buying new radios

Bourbon County Commissioners approved the purchase of two new radios for the sheriff's department and one for the county's emergency management office on Friday.

A federal mandate requires all public safety radios to be narrowbanded to use a tighter frequency to communicate, Emergency Manager Keith Jeffers said during a county commission meeting in April. The switch must be complete by Dec. 31.

Some of the county's radios can't be converted because they are outdated.

While the radios are expensive, they will be more technologically advanced, Jeffers said.

"It needs to be done. It's just a matter of where the money's going to come from to do it," Jeffers told commissioners. "The problem is, I don't believe the sheriff has the budget to pay for them."

Bourbon County Sheriff Ron Gray said the issue arose after the department's budget had been submitted. He said he's already "quite a bit below budget.

"I don't want to dip into that depending on what gas is going to do and wages. One weekend could wipe that out," Gray said.

"They're great radios (the current ones), but the government implemented all this," he said. "I've got a portable radio that I can talk more than 30 miles on, but here in January it's going to be useless."

Commissioners approved a bid received from Pittsburg-based Washington Electronics Inc. for $5,353. Of that, $3,900 will come out of the sheriff's department budget for two radios and $1,453 will be drawn from the emergency management office's budget for one radio.

Commissioners discussed increasing the sheriff's department budget at a later date to help offset the cost of the radios.

"We've got to do something. We might as well do something that's right," County Commissioner Harold Coleman said.

The target date for the switchover is June 12, Jeffers said.

"We're just figuring the middle part of June," he said. "It's going to take the whole week to try and get everything switched over."

The county will still need to purchase portable radios, but Jeffers said that will probably come out of the emergency management fund.

"We're on a really good track right now," he said.

In other business, commissioners:

* Approved Southeast Kansas Regional Correctional Centers Administrator Dylan Marlow's request for a new emergency restraint chair for $1,550. Normally, Marlow said a chair could cost more than $2,000. The restraint chair is a safety precaution for inmates and officers alike and not for discipline or punishment, Marlow said.

The funds for the chair will come out of the jail's budget, but first Marlow had to seek county approval because the item cost more than $500.

Marlow told commissioners the current restraint chair is out of date and could turn into a liability. "If restraints are applied properly, it's not a liability and it's an effective tool," he said. "But it's such an older chair, it uses handcuffs and we've got a high turnover rate. Sometimes these guys are using the chair two to three months after they were trained on it."

Commissioners agreed to buy the new chair from a website, Emergency Restraint Chair Inc.

"I would move you purchase one of these chairs and you properly dispose of the other one. Let's get rid of the liability," Commissioner Jingles Endincott said.

* Approved a landfill hay bid from Robert Query for $40 annually for three years.

*Approved Resolution 14-12, which asks Gov. Sam Brownback to retain funding for the Local Environmental Protection Plan.

County Clerk Joanne Long said a line item in the state's budget grants funds to each county to help with environmental protection, including the employment of a sanitation officer. She added cuts to the LEPP have been threatened before.

* On Friday, Long received a request from an individual seeking a special event cereal malt beverage license for an upcoming 5K run on Aug. 25. State statute requires a resolution be passed to establish the fees. County commissioners proposed a $25 county fee, in conjunction with the $25 state fee.

An annual cereal malt beverage license with Bourbon County is $50.

Long said she would draft a resolution to present to commissioners within the next couple of weeks.

* Larry Sharp from Kansas County Association Multi-Line Pool, the county's liability and insurance company, met with commissioners Monday to discuss the county's loss ratio pay out on claims versus premiums.

For property and casualty claims, not liability, Sharp said Bourbon County's loss ratio is at 32 percent, compared to an average of 71 percent for the other 59 member counties, county commission minutes said.

KCAMP administrator Tom Job said "the lower the number, the better."

"What it means is the county has good risk-management practices and just good operations," Job said in a phone interview on Friday. "They do things right and not many bad things happen. It's what we all want."

* Fort Scott resident Tom Peery inquired about the date of completion for the repairs to the roads at the Gunn Park addition. Public Works Supervisor Marty Pearson said completion is still about five weeks away, meeting minutes said.

The next commission meeting will be June 1.