Drew Wilson
While the House and Senate have been fighting over the budget for weeks, it appears the Statewide Law Enforcement Radio System was not a reason for the holdup.
The initial round of offers for the AEG and State Administration budget silo show the Senate and House in lockstep on funding for the program, which has been a sticking point in past budgets.
SLERS is a digital radio network that provides voice communication services to state law enforcement officers. It encompasses 60,000-plus square miles of the Sunshine State, including aircraft as well as areas up to 25 miles offshore.
The initial budget offers for 2025-26 would each direct about $7.74 million to SLERS, including $6 million in general revenue for “the maintenance, inspection, and insurance of the Statewide Law Enforcement Radio System towers that have been conveyed to the Department of Management Services.”
The agreement is a shift from recent years, which have featured drawn-out battles over the program, which has also been the subject of a high-profile procurement battle.
In 2021, lawmakers bypassed the competitive bidding process. They awarded the SLERS contract to Melbourne-based L3Harris via a proviso, a type of back-of-budget clause that enumerates conditions and clauses for using an appropriation.
The rebuild contract was initially awarded to Motorola Solutions. L3Harris, which held the contract for the now-deprecated version of SLERS, challenged the procurement in court while holding the radio towers that power the system hostage. A court affirmed its right to do so because, despite the towers built by the state, the company formerly known as Harris Corp. held a long-term lease that gave it exclusive control over the towers.
The suit effectively killed the deal between Motorola Solutions and the Department of Management Services, delaying the much-needed SLERS upgrade beyond the planned 2020 groundbreaking date.
