DENVER—A long-unfinished statewide radio system for emergency responders still doesn’t work, and the state lacks sufficient information to fix it, auditors said Tuesday.
The audit showed the Department of Local Affairs has no idea of the number of radios or linking devices that local public-safety and first-responder agencies need to be interconnected, or the additional training and exercises needed.
The failure of agencies to be able to talk to each other became an issue after student gunmen went on a shooting rampage through Columbine in 1999, killing 12 students and a teacher at the suburban Denver school. Several responding law enforcement agencies couldn’t talk to each other on the same radio system.
Department of Local Affairs Director Susan Kirkpatrick told the Legislative Audit Committee her agency did not have adequate information from previous administrations to make key decisions on what is needed to beef up homeland security, despite $135 million in state funding spent on interoperable communications since 1998.
She promised action by next June.
“The Department of Local Affairs has not used strategic analysis or strategic thinking on what we provide,” she told lawmakers.
Auditors also said the state did not target funding for areas of the state most at risk of a terrorist attack or disaster, giving more funds to areas at low or medium risk at the expense of higher-risk areas statewide.
