The Eastern Jackson County Radio System Maintenance Agreement is due for renewal. This renewal will be for a 6-year term and runs on a calendar year basis.
The City of Independence is the primary shareholder in the Eastern Jackson County (EJC) Radio System, with the City of Blue Springs and the Central Jackson County Fire Protection District (CJCFPD) as partners. This Radio System is a part of the Metropolitan Regional Radio System (MARRS) and serves the Radio Communications needs of most of the Cities east of Kansas City except Lees Summit. It also serves Jackson County.
Agencies using the EJC System pay subscriber fees to the City of Independence based on the number of radios they are using. These subscriber fees offset the costs of maintaining the system.
The EJC Radio System is managed by the Independence Police Technology Unit, and all billing and payments are managed by the City of Independence Finance Department. The Police Technology Unit has reviewed this agreement to ensure it covers all the System Maintenance needs.
Motorola submits a single invoice each year for all Maintenance related costs. This invoice includes items that individual Cities, and in some cases City Departments are responsible for. These amounts are billed to the responsible agency by Finance. The total amount of the Maintenance Agreement for Calendar Year 2023 is $752,657.00.
Payments for this maintenance agreement are based on a formula determined by Finance. The subscriber fees paid by agencies are subtracted from the total cost of maintaining the system, and the remaining portion is split among the three partner agencies. The City of Independence pays 60%, the City of Blue Springs pays 30%, and CJCFPD pays the remaining 10% of the Shared Maintenance/Upgrade costs. This formula was determined by the percentage of System equipment owned by each agency.
Each Partner agency also has specific items they are exclusively responsible for, in addition to the shared common costs. The combined individual and shared costs are billed to the partner agencies by Finance.
The City of Independence portion of the remaining balance for FY 22/23 is $367,466. This amount is further split among the City Departments, according to a formula established by the Finance Department. This includes the Subscriber Equipment maintenance costs for individual City departments, and the Maintenance/Upgrade fees for the Independence Communications Center, which are charged to the specific City Departments. These amounts have already been set in each City Department budget for FY 22/23.
The Total Cost per year for years 2-6 are stated in the Contract. The cost sharing formula will be applied to these amounts, and the amount the City pays for Maintenance/Upgrade will stay proportional to what is paid for year one. These costs after Year 2 are only for the Maintenance and Upgrade support. There will be an addendum for each year after Year 2 to cover the infrastructure replacements. During discussions for this agreement, it was determined that Motorola could not provide a fixed price for the out years for equipment they did not supply. There is too much volatility in the Supply chain.
This Maintenance Agreement is essentially a renewal of the existing agreement we have been operating under for the last 10 years. There are a few notable additions in the Renewal agreement:
Provisions have been made for infrastructure replacements, specifically Generators and HVAC units. The existing units are aging out (most have been in use for more than 14 years), and parts are becoming difficult to obtain. Both Generators and HVAC have become an intensive maintenance issue in the last few years, and these are critical components of the system. All Generators and HVAC units will be replaced during the term of the agreement.
Cyber Security monitoring has been added to the agreement. This addition includes 24/7/365 monitoring by Motorola of all networked components of the Radio System, and any intervention/remediation required in the event of a breach.