MOTOROLA RADIOS - MOD

Board of County Commissioners · 2026-06-16 · resolution

The document is a legislative item for Miami-Dade County, File Number 260295, a Resolution to authorize additional expenditure authority of $61,320,728.00 for a total modified contract amount of $121,320,728.00 for Contract No. D-10253, Motorola Public Safety Radios and Capital Infrastructure, for multiple County departments. The action was Amended and passed by the Board of County Commissioners on 6/16/2026 by a vote of 12-0. The contract was established via Resolution No. R-682-22 in the amount of $165,000,000. The additional allocation is for the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department (MDFR), Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department (MDCR), and Communications, Information and Technology Department (CITD). MDCR requires replacement of approximately 2,800 aging radios. The contract expires on August 3, 2027. The vendor is Motorola Solutions, Inc. The amended resolution was assigned Resolution No. R-539-26. The Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee forwarded the item to the BCC with a favorable recommendation on 3/11/2026. The item was introduced on 2/19/2026. The agenda date was 6/16/2026, agenda item number 8P1. The requester is Strategic Procurement. The sponsors are Danielle Cohen Higgins (Prime Sponsor) and Roberto J. Gonzalez (Co-Sponsor). The cost per radio was stated as $6,400 per unit by Mr. Palmer. The MDCR allocation is $21,900,000 for 2,800 radios. The MDFR allocation is $26,920,728. The CITD allocation is $12,500,000. The DEM allocation is $0. The existing cumulative allocation is $60,000,000. The contract has a total modified cumulative allocation of $121,320,728. The contract was established with an allocation of $133,900,000 for the initial five-year term. The MDSO allocation of $84,548,555 was removed and transferred to MDSO's system. The contract was modified under delegated authority for a total of $10,648,555. The MDFR request includes $17,200,000 for phases one and two of the Miami-Dade County Integrated Command and Communications Center (IC3), $6,706,866 for 24/7 communications system operations, $2,186,039 for ongoing maintenance and support services for Motorola APX NEXT radios and Visilink, $700,000 for equipment to support MDFR, and $127,823 for WAVE subscription costs for Fiscal Years 2026 and 2027. The CITD request is to support the continued acquisition of portable radios, required hardware refreshes, and redundancy enhancements for the Premier One Computer-Aided Dispatch system. The MDCR current radio fleet is approaching 17 years of use, beyond its useful life of seven years. The last major purchase occurred in 2010. The MDCR is requesting the allocation to replace 2,800 end-of-life L3Harris radios with modern Motorola smart radios. The contract manager for CITD is Albert Falcon, for MDFR is Marianela Betancourt, for MDCR is Alessandra Linares, and for DEM is Alejandro Fernandez. The vendor principal is Gregory Q. Brown, with a principal address of 500 West Monroe Street, Chicago, IL. The Chief of Public Safety is Arnold Palmer. The County Attorney assigned is Michael B. Valdes. The due diligence review found no adverse findings for Motorola Solutions Inc. The two percent User Access Program applies where permitted by funding source. The Small Business Enterprise measures and Local Preference do not apply. The Living Wage Ordinance does not apply. Public comment sentiment includes a representative of L3Harris stating during public comment that the radios cost $8,000 per unit, which was clarified by Mr. Palmer as $6,400 per unit. Commissioner Gonzalez stated he had held conversations with several entities, including the Police Benevolent Association (PBA), the Sheriff's Office, MDFRD, and the fire union, regarding the connectivity of the radio systems. Commissioner Cohen Higgins expressed concern that Corrections had to wait four years for radios under the 2022 contract. Vice Chairwoman Milian Orbis questioned whether standardization was necessary and raised a pricing discrepancy, noting that dividing the Corrections Department's $21.9 million allocation by the 2,800 radios being purchased resulted in approximately $7,800 per unit. She requested, together with Commissioner Cohen Higgins, that staff determine whether other radios could meet the needs of the CITD and Corrections before the matter reached the Board. Commissioner Cohen Higgins noted the concern regarding dependence on a single vendor and emphasized the importance of a competitive process. She stated she looked forward to meeting with Motorola before the final hearing so the company could demonstrate that the price per radio was the best and lowest available. Mr. Palmer stated that interoperability of radios was paramount during any critical incident and that public safety agencies should operate on the same platform to ensure interoperability. Mr. Olazabal noted that the radios used a communications protocol known as P25, an industry-standard protocol that allowed different radios to communicate. Chairwoman Lopez asked whether all of the radios were connected to the statewide network. Dr. Edwards stated that she had confirmed with the Fire Rescue Department that the County's law enforcement radios were connected to the network, as required.