Every day, and especially during an emergency, Bennett County Sheriff Lindell Adair's most reliable tool for contacting his staff or other emergency personnel is a radio connected to South Dakota's digital radio network.

"Our phones only work in about half the county," Adair said. "Without good digital communication, we're out of contact with everybody."

But the technology supporting the statewide digital radio system that allows Adair to summon help from anywhere in South Dakota is aging, according to Tom Dravland, secretary of the state Department of Public Safety.

"In a very few, short years, if we don't start to move down the path to upgrade our system we could run into a situation where it doesn't work either locally or it could possibly have problems on a statewide basis," Dravland said.

The radio system that links local governments and emergency responders did not exist in 1999 when a tornado ravaged Spencer. Then-Gov. Bill Janklow was startled to learn that the various agencies responding to the eastern South Dakota community operated on different radio systems and could not communicate with each other.

The state started building the inter-linked digital radio system in 2001.

"At the state level, interoperable communication is the backbone of emergency response, literally, in any state," Dravland said. Cities and counties using the system account for 70 percent of the system's radio traffic, according to Dravland.

Today, Adair's radio is only one of 14,000 radios registered on the state's interoperable digital radio network. Virtually every state, county and city agency responsible for public safety - including law enforcement, emergency response teams - fire departments, ambulance services, hospitals and highway departments - is linked through the system that blankets 98 percent of the state.

About 2 million times a month, the "push-to-talk" buttons on those radios are used to dispatch emergency responders or to relay information across the state or within a community or county.

"That's what we wanted. In fact, we hope it continues to grow," Dravland said.

The digital system is a Motorola-based network of computers, switches, towers and repeaters.

Within the next five years, however, Motorola will stop supporting the current system in favor of newer technology.

Updating the system will cost about $5.8 million, money the state doesn't have, Dravland said.

To pay for the upgrade, the state Department of Public Safety is asking counties to give up their 2009 federal Homeland Security grant allocations. South Dakota recently was notified that it will receive $6.25 million in Homeland Security grants for fiscal year 2009. Typically, 80 percent of the funding is passed on to local governments.

Pennington County is part of a seven-county region that received and distributed about $683,000 in fiscal year 2008 Homeland Security grants.

The grant awards are distributed to assist schools, fire departments and other emergency responders. Schools have used the money for keyless entry systems and security cameras. Volunteer fire departments have used the grants to buy digital radios and other essential equipment.

There is never enough money to fund all of the grant requests the regional committee receives, according to Pennington County Emergency Manager Anthony Carbajal. Carbajal said county commissioners will discuss the state's request at a July meeting.

Since grant funding typically arrives a year after the award, no one would give up money they are counting on, Carbajal said.

"That's the good news," Carbajal said.

Dravland said the state is only asking counties to give up their grant dollars for one year. The state will dedicate three years of its portion of any Homeland Security grant awards to updating the radio system.

"We look forward to additional years of Homeland Security funding," Dravland said. "We have to, in my mind, prioritize what it is that we want to do and when we want to do it."

Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., recently fought to include $6.5 million for South Dakota in the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill for fiscal year 2010.

Dravland believes the various agencies using the system will be willing to give up their grants for one year to pay for the project. Local agencies depend heavily on the system for emergency dispatching.

"We know there's a change that needs to be made to our radio system in the state," Dravland said. "If you don't have communications, you don't have a backbone of emergency response. If you can't talk to each other or you can't get dispatched or get equipment to the scene, you're hampered in what you can do."

County-by-county distribution of fiscal year 2008 regional Homeland Security grants:

Pennington: $493,306.30

Fall River: $51,538.24

Custer: $50,592.71

Bennett: $30,407.70

Haakon: $22,925.68

Jackson: $19,266.89

Shannon: $14,909.23

Contact Andrea Cook at andrea.cook@rapidcityjournal.com or 394-8423.