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Gov. John Kitzhaber‘s proposed budget cuts to a project to upgrade the state’s aging radio network isn’t cause for gloom and doom – even if it does reduce funding by more than two-thirds. The agency managing the effort will simply have to shift gears and reprioritize.

That’s the message from Tom Lauer, manager of the Major Projects Branch of the Oregon Department of Transportation, which took over the program in April 2010.

The multi-pronged project would have cost $586 million overall, according to agency estimates, but was cut to $146 million in the governor’s proposed budget released last week.

“We’re going to re-task in the governor’s direction,” Lauer said. “The challenge is to deal with the radio system and also deal with the state budget problems. It’s a tough time right now for every level of government.”

The problem with the existing system at the most basic level is that it’s old. Radios and communications systems used by ODOT, the Oregon State Police, the Department of Corrections and the Oregon Department of Forestry were put in place at different times using different analog systems in the past.

Those systems can’t talk to one another, and in some cases are so old that the only way to buy replacement parts for them is to check on eBay and other websites, Lauer added.

In practical terms, the technology gaps cause police officers chasing a subject from one district to another to use several radios in their cars if they want to talk to other officers joining the chase, said Jeff Johnson, CEO of the Western Fire Chiefs Association and chairman of the state Interoperability Executive Council.

“Police and fire radios don’t roam like your cell phone,” Johnson said. “So, for example, you can start a police chase in the city of Portland and head in any direction, and your ability to talk to other responders will quickly be overrun as you overrun the boundaries of your radio system.”

That means the only way to reach other officers is to call their cell phones, but those numbers cannot be accessed through the radio network because it’s not interconnected, Johnson said.

“So what you have to do if you’re aware that you might cross into other areas is buy extra radios for each district,” Johnson said. “A lot of officers have a bank of them in their cars. And that’s the only thing you can do right now, pretty much.”

The plan ODOT was working on before it got word of the budget changes looked at four main issues with the current system.

The first of those is that equipment in the network – and all such networks across the United States – must meet new Federal Communications Commission licensing requirements by Jan. 1, 2013.

That plan is somewhat like the FCC digital television transition, which mandated that all television signals switch to digital format by June 12, 2009. The same thing is happening with state radio networks, which must meet new digital standards by the 2013 deadline.

“If we don’t meet that deadline and we’re found to be out of compliance, then the FCC could fine us, make us re-task the radio signals we use, or shut the lines down completely, and we’d just have no service,” Lauer said.

The second issue is that the infrastructure is aging – radio towers in the network are almost always put on top of mountains and are subject to snow, high winds, rain and other elements.

A lot of those towers are 30 years old and are rusting, structurally unsound or, in some cases, have fallen over in high winds, Lauer said.

“They degrade like anything and need to be replaced,” Lauer said.

Another part of the infrastructure problem is that the state microwave radio system is so old that it has become increasingly hard to operate. Microwave radios essentially interconnect smaller radio towers onto a larger grid, allowing a signal to be moved from one tower to the next, but many of those radios were put in place a few decades ago.

“That’s a challenge,” Lauer said. “The microwave system is quite old and the system is no longer made. These systems, as they get older, they degrade like anything else and need to be replaced in time.”

A third issue is the interoperability of the system – or finding a way to get all those separate police radio systems to communicate with each other and automatically switch without the need for several radios.

And the fourth issue is to find a way to update all systems from the various agencies like ODOT, police, corrections and forestry, so that they use the same digital technology.

With the governor’s proposed cutbacks, it won’t be possible to upgrade all of those aspects of the system, so ODOT is working on a plan to reprioritize the work, Lauer said.

That means that meeting the FCC deadline will become the top priority, and the second will be to patch up aging towers and systems as they become critical, Lauer said.

“We’ve had a project going in one direction, and now we have to manage the transition to a new direction,” Lauer said. “We have to slow the project down and redirect it, but we believe we can re-radio the state and the microwave system. What we won’t have enough money for is the towers.”

Towers can’t be constructed in winter because of weather. There are about 300 towers in the network in various conditions, with about eight of them ready and waiting for new radios, said Don Hamilton, a spokesman for the OWIN program.

“We’re taking care to make sure this fits with Oregon’s budget priority, but I’m not hearing anybody saying that this system shouldn’t be fixed,” Hamilton said.

Base costs for a new tower is approximately $500,000 – but some problems, like provision of power in a rural area, can increase the cost dramatically, Lauer said.

As of December, the agency had spent about $26 million constructing towers, planning and buying some equipment. The changed budget will mean ODOT will have to renegotiate some of the contracts it was planning.

The agency had not yet placed an actual order with Harris Radio, the company doing the radio work. ODOT will probably change its order and get some different equipment, but it will retain the company, Lauer said.

The contract for tower construction with General Dynamics is also fairly open-ended and can be renegotiated, he said.

It also shouldn’t be problematic to renegotiate the site design contract with Black & Veatch and the radio design contract with Federal Engineering, he said.

“I don’t foresee any lawsuit; what we’ll have is a re-tasking that will be in the scope of our existing contracts,” Lauer said.

Another cost-saving effort will leave radio systems from forestry and corrections in place, because those systems are somewhat newer than much larger systems used by ODOT and the state police, he said.

“Those systems are in midlife and they don’t need immediate replacement, and they’re FCC compliant,” he said.

In the end, the agency understands the statewide budget problems, and while the cutbacks will slow the project, eventually all agencies should be able to get what they need, Johnson added.

“These are tough times, and there’s not enough money to go around,” he said. “I think it’s a responsibility of OWIN to help the government meet these challenges. That’s what we have to do. And we can still do what we need to do; we just have to be understanding of the realities and the strains on the economy.”