Wait, what?

Visalia Unified School District’s Board of Trustees next meeting includes a consent calendar item for a “digital radio upgrade”. The packet includes information that this is a $60,781 “one-time” cost for the hardware upgrade. What the item doesn’t say, but is included in the invoice, is an annual subscription cost of $26,522 from year 2 onwards.

So what is a “digital radio upgrade” you might ask? Well, I’m glad you asked.

From their own agenda packet:


Backup Radios TransportationDownload

They want to ensure the ability of bus drivers to communicate with the District Bus office when they take the buses beyond the range of the current two-way radio system.

Reasonable.

The problem?

They want to outfit 75 buses with these new units, and have 10 handheld units.

Here’s my thoughts on the matter. While being able to communicate with the buses when they’re on what we used to call ‘field trips’ beyond the range of the currently installed two-way radios, they’ll never have a time when all 75 buses are out of range.

$60,000 initially, and $26,500 a year after that, to solve a limited problem, seems a bit pricey.

Here’s a cheaper idea. Check your records. See how many buses are on field trips out of range at once during the past two years.

Once you have that number, you know how much technology you need.

Here’s the solution. Buy that many cell phones, and assign them to the transportation division. When a bus is going out of radio range, give the driver a phone pre-programmed with 9-1-1 and the transportation office phone number.

The proposed “radios” will be using the cellular network, so a bundled cell phone plan should be a lot cheaper.

You don’t need to outfit every bus with the technology needed to leave it’s radio coverage area. And if your solution is using a cellular network to solve that problem, a relatively cheap cell phone works exactly the same way.

Or, pay drivers a stipend to carry their own cell phone with them, and use that when circumstances require communications with base.

And there’s no $26,500 annual subscription fee.

10-4?