The Department of Justice is inviting the Bismarck Police Department to participate in a second Interoperability Communications Technology Grant Process, which could involve up to $3 million.

Chief Deborah Ness, with the help of GEOComm's Richard Tenan, gave the city commission an update on the Interoperability Master Plan at the Tuesday commission meeting. GEOComm is the consultant the Bismarck Police Department is working with on the current interoperability project for voice communications.

The master plan is part of an effort to have all the local public safety agencies located in the Bismarck Metropolitan Statistical Area on a multijurisdictional/multidiscipline voice communications platform. Simply put, emergency response agencies will be able to speak to each other on one radio system.

This project is being paid for with a $2.25 million Department of Justice grant that was given to the Bismarck Police Department, though the other 16 agencies are responsible for paying their share of the local match. That remainder is about $752,000, bringing the total funding to about $3 million.

Ness said specifications are complete and the department is ready to put the project involving infrastructure and radios out for bid.

In the proposal for the second grant, the focus will be on improving interoperability of data transmission to the computers found in emergency vehicles. Funds will also be used for creating infrastructure to implement a base system, and on interoperability of those jurisdictions that use pagers, such as rural fire departments.

The data systems will allow pictures, maps, fingerprints and other graphic data to be transmitted to vehicles equipped with computers.

Another $3 million is available, with a similar 25 percent local match needed. The various emergency response agencies that took part in the first grant are being contacted to determine their level of support in the second grant.

Providing the local match for a federal grant of this size has significant budget implications for the participating agencies, Ness said.

Ness said she was surprised Bismarck was offered a chance to participate in the second round of grants and is one of only three cities in North Dakota that was. If Bismarck's application is approved, it will have to come back to the city commission and other jurisdictions for their approval.

The grant funding is a three-year period, and matching funds can be phased in over that period and only apply to money actually spent, according to Ness. If all the grant money is not spent it will be de-obligated by the federal government and the match funds do not apply.

Deadline for the application is June 29 and commissioners approved submitting an application with the understanding that if the grant is approved the commission can still decide on whether to accept it.