Robert Nott
The Santa Fe New Mexican
(TNS)
Jul. 28—At Fire Station 5, firefighter Ryan Campion was moving from fire truck to fire truck, preparing communication radios in the vehicles for a frequency switch.
The goal, he said, is to get first responders within Santa Fe’s fire and police departments on the same statewide channel — known as the Statewide Digital Trunked Radio Communications System — so they can connect with one another and with other state and local agencies to coordinate response efforts.
“If we have a large-scale event or emergency, we can move faster, more efficiently,” he said in between checking the radios on the trucks parked in the station off Siler Road.
Standing nearby, Deputy Chief Ben Valdez of the Santa Fe Police Department, which is also joining the statewide radio system, said the goal is to get every municipality that wants to join on one communal channel.
“It’s critical,” Valdez said. “If we need additional units to respond, communication is essential to get the operation in gear.”
The move, which has so far drawn 34 federal, tribal and local entities, is part of a yearslong effort to better unify law enforcement, medical and fire agencies into a single radio system, said Michael Rohrbacher, director of public safety communications for the state Department of Information Technology, which is overseeing the transition.
Traditionally, he said, “everybody in New Mexico has their own radio system, and it doesn’t necessarily work with another agency’s radios, which means when we have a large-scale event or natural disaster — or unfortunately an officer-involved shooting or a prison escape — you get many different agencies on the scene, and they can’t talk to one another.”
Moving more of those agencies onto one radio frequency will eliminate that problem, he said. The interoperable radio initiative is a voluntary one for those entities, he said, and over time he expects more will want to join.
The transition to the digital trunked radio system, which will take until 2028 to become fully operational, comes as Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office announced she will provide funding to cover a year’s worth of radio subscription fees for agencies around the state.
That will come to about $2.5 million in capital outlay money, Rohrbacher said in an interview. He said each radio costs at least $20 per month for subscription rates for any non-state agency, such as a county or tribal government.
For Santa Fe police, the subscription radio cost coverage will amount to savings of about $420,000 per year.
“This looks to be a significant cost savings with the state covering the monthly subscription cost,” Valdez wrote in an email.
The governor’s financial support comes several months after Senate Bill 409, which would have accomplished the same goal of connecting all the agencies on one radio frequency, stalled in the Senate during this year’s legislative session.
Rep. Joshua Hernandez, R-Rio Rancho, who co-sponsored SB 409, said in an interview the state money to finance the initiative will especially help “the smaller and volunteer public safety departments throughout the state, which are the ones that are most in need.”
Since the governor’s support will cover only the next year of funding for the radio subscription fees, Hernandez said he will work with others interested in continuing the initiative to pass legislation in next year’s session to keep it going.
Santa Fe County officials said they are also joining the digital trunked radio system and are grateful for the financial support.
The Santa Fe County Fire Department has over 200 vehicles and 200 first responders, and when you add up the $20-per-month subscription fee “it becomes very, very costly,” county Fire Chief Jacob Black said in an interview.
More importantly, he said, joining the statewide system “allows us to receive critical information that allows officers and firefighters information they need to make decisions in life-and-death situations.”
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