Home » Ross, Sinclaire and Associates closes $4.6M financing of Campbell County emergency dispatch system

Ross, Sinclaire and Associates closes $4.6M financing of Campbell County emergency dispatch system

New system will enhance public safe, improve emergency communications

NEWPORT, Ky. (Aug. 17, 2017) — Ross, Sinclaire & Associates, LLC, (RSA) has completed the $4.6 million financing for a new Campbell County emergency dispatch system that will enhance public safety and improve communications among police, fire and other first responders.

Proceeds from the financing are being used to fund Campbell County’s portion of Northern Kentucky’s first regional emergency digital radio system in Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties. The $18 million three-county system is expected to be in operation in about 18 months.

RSA served as the municipal advisor on the transaction, which was structured as lease revenue bonds payable from revenue generated by the 911 service fee paid by the public. The bonds had a 10-year term and were competitively bid at a fixed rate of 2.4 percent for the full term of the bonds, said RSA Financial Advisor Joe Lakofka, who works in RSA’s Lexington office.

A portion of Campbell County’s costs include installing new digital transmitting and receiving equipment on nine separate towers throughout the county.

“Once installed and operating, police and fire will be able to communicate instantly on the scene of an emergency across the three counties, as well as have the ability to communicate with first responders in Cincinnati and the Kentucky State Police,” Lakofka said.

Campbell County Dispatch Director Dale Edmondson said the new system will eliminate situations in certain parts of the county – including Bellevue, Dayton and southern Campbell County – where the current World War II-era analog radio technology makes it difficult at times for police and firefighters to get a radio signal and transmit an emergency message to dispatch operators or other first responders.

“Many believe that with our current system, police and firefighters can talk to one another because they have radios,” Edmondson said. “But that’s just not the case. They can only talk to each other while en route to an emergency by relaying messages through dispatch or by making a phone call. That’s not efficient, that’s not good public safety and that’s why the counties have taken this bold, innovative and necessary step to improve emergency dispatch in the entire region.”