The Colleyville Crime Control and Prevention District budget features four new funding requests for fiscal year 2024-25.
Two of the four items approved at the July 16 City Council meeting are cost-share items that the city will pay a portion for: the Northeast Tarrant County Radio Consortium and North Tarrant Regional SWAT team. The overall budget was $3.28 million and the fund accounts for 30% of the police budget, according to Colleyville Police Chief Michael Miller.
The CCCPD budget runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2025, according to city officials. It is funded through a half-cent sales tax and that was renewed for another 20 years in 2023.
A closer look
The Northeast Tarrant County Radio Consortium includes Colleyville, Bedford, Euless, Grapevine, Keller and Southlake. Each city contributes for infrastructure upgrades and a trunked radio system upgrade is required by 2026, according to Miller. Netco maintains the trunked radio systems for police and fire departments in the cities.
Funding the upgrades in the fiscal year 2024-25 budget will give the cities a 10% discount, meaning the equal cost for the cities will be $161,218. Miller said that decision as made by the consortium board and city managers in the respective cities.
“We do more together than we could on our own, for sure, and it saves the citizens money,” Miller said. “I think the cooperation between the cities and the departments are really high. That makes it really successful, but we appreciate the cooperation of everybody.”
Diving in deeper
Another cooperative purchase is a new Bearcat armored vehicle for the North Tarrant Regional SWAT Team, with the city of Colleyville paying $77,373. The total cost for a new Bearcat G3 is $386,886, according to the presentation.
Miller said the North Tarrant Regional SWAT Team is comprised of Colleyville, Southlake, Keller, Trophy Club and Roanoke and features 36 teams members from those five police departments.
The current armored vehicle is a military surplus vehicle, Miller said.
“We used it during several of our recent SWAT call outs, but it's just not well-suited for most of the situations that our team encounters on a day-to-day basis,” Miller said.
The action taken
The other new items on the budget was a one-time purchase for portable radios and a new software program.
Miller said the current portable radios, purchased in 2013, can no longer be serviced or repaired. There is a one-time purchase price of $336,475 for 50 Motorola smart radios, which would replace the current radios and provide four backups, according to city documents.
The radios have an ongoing cost of $1,440 per year for a feature that provides connection even if out of range, Miller said. The chief said during a recent family vacation in Colorado, he was able to listen to radio traffic in Colleyville.
The software program is called PowerDMS and is used for policy management and to facilitate the CCPD's accreditation process, according to city documents. Miller said the annual subscription is $14,014 for the first year and then $9,370 in subsequent years. He said the bump in the first year is for a test for staff to take to review the policies and a survey for the public to measure citizen’s satisfaction with police services.
