Cost of new phone system
coming into focus

By Brook R. Corwin
brook@surrymessenger.com

Just about everyone in city hall is worried to some extent about Mount Airy’s 16-year-old telecommunications network, although for two very different reasons.

For some, the fear is that the system could crash at any point with no warranty or available spare parts to fix the problem. Others are nervous about overextending the city’s fragile finances by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a replacement.
At least one side should find some relief soon.
The city council will review bids on a new telecommunications system and cable network this month to decide whether to move forward with a replacement. Bids are now being taken on the project, all of which will be evaluated by ClientFirst Consulting Group with recommendations made to the council.
ClientFirst is the same firm that made a presentation last spring to the council on the need for a system upgrade, estimating the cost at between $360,000 to $470,000. City Manager Don Brookshire said Friday that bids are coming in lower than initially expected because of the lack of work for most vendors.
“It’s going to be on the low end of those projections, if it even gets to that point,” he said. “The timing was right to do this.”
The council has had mixed views on whether now is the best time for a communications upgrade, voting 4-1 a couple of months ago just to solicit bids after some discussion on whether the city could afford the project. While Deborah Cochran was the only commissioner to vote against taking bids, others questioned whether a full-scale replacement will be worth the cost.
“I’m still under the opinion that if it’s not broken you don’t fix it,” Commissioner Dean Brown said Wednesday. “It’s prudent to get bids, but I’m not sure if it’s the right time to spend that kind of money, especially going into debt to pay it back.”
For the past two years the risks of sticking with the current communications system have been noted. It has outlived its manufacturer-reccomended lifespan. While it has yet to show any maintenance issues, any problems could prove tricky since the manufacturer no longer makes replacement parts.
At a recent meeting, Commissioner David Beal went so far to suggest deliberately cutting the system off for a day to see how well the city could function if it had to resort to the half dozen phone lines at Reeves Community Center.
Brookshire said contractors are invited to bid on installing an analog system as an alternate to the recommended proposal for a new digital network. A digital system is typically more expensive since it involves overhauling both phone lines and cable used for internet connections.
However, the efficiency created by the extra bandwith is estimated to save the city about $20,000 annually in operational costs.
After considering and then removing funds for a replacement system from the budget last year, the 2009-2010 budget approved by the council last month does set aside $103,000 for the project. That should be more than enough to cover the first year’s payment on a five-year loan, based on the interest rates of below 5 percent the city has regulary recieved for recent capital projects.
But committing to those payments for an additional four years could make some commissioners uneasy, depending on how the revenue picture shakes out with the state budget. Given the measures legislators have considered for plugging their multi-billion dollar budget hole, some might view taking their chances with an old telephone system as the lesser of two risks.
“We don’t know where the money is going to come from. We’re still in a tight economic situation,” Brown said. “If we had money flowing like water, it wouldn’t be much of a question. But we still have to work on replenishing our reserves and not just spending to replace things that aren’t broken.”