Commissioners approve $1.147M change order for Motorola radio project
Cost of emergency radio system has increased to $26.38M
The cost of Motorola’s emergency radio project in Washington County keeps going up.
In a split vote Thursday, the county commissioners approved a $1.147 million change order to build three new equipment shelters, generators and tanks for the P-25 emergency radio system, raising the overall cost of the project to $26.38 million.
Commissioners Nick Sherman and Electra Janis voted in favor of the change order, while Commissioner Larry Maggi opposed it and asked if they could table the item to discuss with Motorola the need for the additional shelters.
The approval came as somewhat of a surprise after Sherman and Maggi both expressed concern and skepticism about the increasing total during Wednesday morning’s agenda-setting meeting.
“At some point, we have to stand up to these guys,” Maggi said during Wednesday’s meeting.
Sherman appeared to agree with Maggi, saying that Motorola’s explanation that the shelters are needed due to unforeseen coverage issues should not fall on the county since that service was guaranteed in the original $24.4 million contract the commissioners approved in 2024.
“They promised a certain level of coverage, and I appreciate that they’re saying they need this to meet that coverage, but that’s on them,” Sherman said, adding he wanted to learn more about the need to spend more than $1 million on the three shelters.
But less than 28 hours later, Sherman had changed his tune and was ready to approve the change in order Thursday to move the project forward rather than delay a decision for another two weeks until the board’s next meeting on April 2. Sherman said the three “bay stations” were always needed and they were estimated to cost $500,000 each, so he thought the $1.147 million price was in line with what they were expecting.
“This was explained to me that this is what we need to do,” Sherman said. “I don’t like this any more than you, but it doesn’t change the scope of work we have. So I’d just like to make sure this project is not delayed.”
“I know we both expressed our concerns about it yesterday,” Maggi said of Wednesday’s agenda-setting meeting. “It should’ve been included (in the contract).”
After the meeting, Maggi issued a statement that he is “discouraged” by Motorola’s increasing costs of the project, which have now gone up more than 8% compared to the original contract, with the build-out still in progress ahead of the radio system being operational early next year.
“I assume that when the bids were opened, the contractors had included the whole scope of work in their proposals and that they wouldn’t keep coming back with huge change orders,” Maggi said. “We need to scrutinize the process to stop this continuous bleed of Washington County tax dollars, and this is why I am against this change order. Motorola must be held accountable to the contract.”
In August 2024, the county commissioners authorized the $24.4 million contract with Motorola Solutions to implement the new P-25 public safety radio system agreement, with Sherman and Janis voting in favor and Maggi voting against it. Maggi had preferred an alternate system upgrade using MRA Inc. of North Strabane, which he and former commission chairwoman Diana Irey Vaughan approved for $22.545 million in March 2023 that Sherman opposed. When Sherman was elevated to board chair after Janis replaced Irey Vaughan following her retirement, the two Republican commissioners terminated the contract with MRA and pursued the radio project with Motorola.
Motorola is in the process of building the network for the emergency radio system and supplying portable radios to first responders with the hopes of implementing it in the first quarter of 2027.