The communication infrastructure in Scott County, Iowa, and Rock Island County, Illinois—which are part of one metropolitan area that is separated by the Mississippi River— needed upgrading because it didn’t meet modern federal interoperability standards. The communities’ systems weren’t capable of communicating with one another, within the overall area (known as the Quad Cities), or with other agencies across the state line. The infrastructure was also aging and obsolete, potentially jeopardizing the critical lifesaving role of 911 and emergency communications throughout the region. So, these two communities came together to solve a problem that affected them both: aging emergency radio infrastructure.

Scott County and Rock Island County worked together to win GFOA's 2020 Award for Excellence in Governance Finance for its creative solution to a common problem in working to address its aging emergency radio infrastructure.

• Publication date: December 2020