Belle Marshal Joe Turnbough said Phelps Health donated 11 radios to the Belle Police Department that will need to be reprogrammed before they can be used.

“The hospital paid to de-program the radios and the guy at the hospital that is certified to do (the programing) gave me a quote at $30 a radio,” Turnbough said. “They also gave us dockets to charge them.”

Turnbough said the donation saved the department a lot of money on what they were going to order previously. He added that Public Works Director Nathan Abel said they may be able to purchase the radio programing software cheap enough that it would save them more money.

“I think it is less than $100,” Abel said about the cost of the programming. “I think the software and the cables are $100 or less. They are wanting to charge them like $300 in programing. Well if we ever want to make changes or need to do something ourselves, then we would have the programming.”

The board approved the purchase of the software to program the radios with a 4-0 vote.

Aldermen Ken Stanfield asked the marshal if that was the kind of radio he wanted.

“They are a lot better quality than what we have,” Turnbough said. “They are not digital, but are a lot better quality than what we have.”

Alderman Courtney Abel asked Turnbough if the hospital provided him with a letter saying the radios were donated. Turnbough said yes.

“So we never did order the batteries and stuff we talked about two or three months ago?” asked Mayor Josh Seaver.

Turnbough said no.

“I held off on doing that because I was in the middle of negotiating these,” Turnbough said. “If we could get them this way, we were going to save a lot of money. Plus there are more here than we were going to order.”

Turnbough said later that the radios will not solve the communication problem between the Belle Police Department and Maries and Osage counties — even though they are a step up.

“What (the hospital) has given me is what we already got — analog,” Turnbough said. “We are short on these — we don’t have very many. What (Seaver) gave us permission to buy a few months ago was some these and a couple of batteries.”

Turnbough said he was going to order new radios and batteries, but the hospital was going to give him nine analog radios that were better quality and two car radios that are on the same frequencies after they are programed. Radios also had chargers, batteries and clips.

Turnbough said even though Belle PD was unable to update their radios when Maries County did, the county kept their old radios to be able to monitor the city. But they can’t communicate.

“They bounce off of their repeater and we bounce off of Osage County’s,” he said. “Once we get out in the county, they are not going to work good.”

Turnbough added that when they work the fair or special events, reserve officers can also have a radio.

“They guys would have their radio on at their house and would put it in their dockets so that they could monitor traffic in case one of us gets in trouble,” Turnbough said. “This makes it so that they can have one at the house in the docket and the one that they carry on their body too. Then they can switch batteries in and out.”

The donation gives everyone enough radios that those on full-time would be able to have two and those on part-time and on special events would have one when needed. The digital radios are expensive and the department would only be able to afford two at a time.

“Maries County got into a pursuit here in town one time and we didn’t know it because we didn’t have radios that communicated,” Turnbough said.

He added that the radios were approved in October to go to the city, but he never got to bring it up.

“After the (October) meeting, the chief up there asked me if they were happy to get those radios, and I said I never even got to bring it up,” Turnbough said.

Seaver said he is extremely pleased the hospital chose to donate the radios to the city.

“That’s a fantastic gift from the hospital to the city and helps us out a ton,” Seaver said.