Miami-Dade awards $165 million contract to Motorola Solutions outside procurement process

Members of the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners yesterday voted unanimously to approve a no-bid, $165 million contract to Motorola Solutions for P25 radios and other communications gear, despite concerns about the process and warnings from L3Harris officials that some device features may not work on the police network.

Under the contract, Miami-Dade County will purchase Motorola Solutions APX NEXT mobile and portable radios for both firefighters—which use a Motorola Solutions system—and police officers, which communicate via an 800 MHz system from L3Harris. The agreement also provides for microwave enhancements and air-to-ground video streaming from helicopters for Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.

The $165 million figure covers 10 year of the contract—the initial five years and a five-year option. The contract also included two additional five-year options, according to Miami-Dade information.

While the network infrastructure associated with the fire department system generally is considered to be a sole-source item, several questions have been raised about awarding Motorola Solutions the contract for APX NEXT devices—able to operate on both P25 and LTE networks—without a formal procurement. The “designated purchase” approach apparently was unveiled publicly for the first time last week during a committee meeting that reportedly did not include discussion by the committee members.

Commission Chairman Jose “Pepe” Diaz, who co-sponsored the agenda item with Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, explained why he believes awarding the contract as a “designated purchase”—outside of a normal procurement process—is appropriate in this circumstance.

“We would always like to have a full-process procurement situation,” Diaz said during the commission meeting, which was webcast. “But when it means something about life-safety, I am sorry—I am going to try to rush it as much as I can, and I’m not really going to be too apologetic about that … I will not sit behind a procurement that will cause a problem, but I will stand behind something that will save lives, and that’s what’s going on today.”

Multiple commissioners referenced the fact that the Miami-Dade procurement system often can be lengthy and lead to frustration. The meeting’s agenda also noted that Motorola Solutions indicated that the pricing in its proposal would be available only through Aug. 23 and that the cost would increase $3.4 million beyond that date.

Greg Rubin, communications chief at Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, said that fire and police officials have done “an extensive level of market research” during the past two years.

“Looking at the marketplace with the radios that are available, only the Motorola radios offered the advanced features, such as the large touchscreen in front of you, with mapping, with personnel-level tracking, with messaging—you can send and receive text messages, you can receive picture messages—and you have voice-activated control,” Rubin said during the meeting.

“As a result, because there’s only one vendor in the marketplace that offers these features, the appropriate path to take was a designated purchase for the radios.”

Rubin later reiterated this position when responding to a question from Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins about why the Motorola Solutions proposal was pursued outside of the normal procurement process.

“The Motorola radios were certified and came out in 2020,” Rubin said. “We first got our hands on them early last year to start using them, and they’re the only radios that offered the features that we’re looking for. So, that’s the process, because there is no other product in the marketplace.

“Going through an RFP [request-for-proposal procurement] would result in the same outcome anyway.”

Diaz also said that he asked numerous questions about the Motorola Solutions technology before sponsoring the measure.

“I tried to check off as many boxes as I could to try to get this in, guys.” Diaz said. “It’s not that we’re just trying to rush something to rush it. I understand and respect my colleagues’ opinion on it. Anytime we can take it through a regular process, maybe that’s the way to go.

“But in this case, there’s no other product like it. And yes, I want our people to have their hands on it as soon as possible. I just wanted to state that, because I know that there were some innuendos going around here and there by certain people, and that offends me. That offends me.”

County commissioners unanimously voted for the Motorola Solutions contract, but several expressed concern about the lack of a procurement process prior to making the award.

Vice Chairman Oliver Gilbert repeatedly questioned the designated-purchase approach, noting that it was not done as a sole-source contract.

“This is not a sole-source [contract],” Gilbert said prior to the vote at the meeting. “This is not a sole-source, which tells me that this actually probably isn’t the only technology, because then it would be a sole-source. So that means that—in theory—somebody could compete, had you actually had a process. The reason this isn’t going to be illegal is because we’re going to waive our rules.

“Right now, it’s just a bunch of work that you [police and fire staff] have done. It becomes legal by our action. We waive rules, and we approve the item. I anticipate us doing that, because circumstances and history tells me that we’re going to do that. However, this is so far from the best practices … We’ve just gone astray.”

Commissioner Danielle Cohen Higgins also expressed concern about the precedent that the Motorola Solutions contract might set for other departments that would choose to pursue “designated purchases” as a way to get the items they want without going through a normal procurement.

“When we approve this today, what’s to say that other departments aren’t going to come before us and articulate the exact same thing—that they did a considerable amount of research, and they felt that this was the best product for their department?” Cohen Higgins said. “And then we’re going to have the precedent of this to say, ‘Well, we’re going to have to approve that, as well.’ If we continue down that road, then procurement becomes meaningless in Miami-Dade County, which none of us want or support.

“I also think it’s worth highlighting that there are a number of designated purchases that are coming up on our agendas rather frequently,” Higgins said, noting five such purchases on yesterday’s agenda. “So, we’re seeing a trend on this board of shifting away from competitive solicitations and process and going toward designated purchases, which I find concerning. I don’t want to see a tremendous amount of it moving forward.”

One other concern raised by several commissioners was the county’s responsibility to ensure that the new Motorola Solutions devices work with the existing fire and police LMR systems. Legal counsel reiterated on multiple occasions that it the county’s responsibility—not Motorola—to ensure that proper testing is done and that things work as expected.

Both police and fire officials expressed confidence that the radios will work well, as other agencies have used the devices when working with Miami-Dade departments during the past two years.

Gilbert said he hopes that level of experience and internal testing will be sufficient.

“You didn’t go through the process,” Gilbert said. “You’re saying that you did the market research and you studied everything, and now I’m forced to take your word. That’s cool, I’ll take your word. But if it doesn’t work, it’s not on the process, it’s on you.

“You’re saying that this is going to be compatible with our system, because you looked, and you figured it out. OK, I believe you. You’re saying that this is only thing that gives us what we want—no one else does it just like this. All right.

“Other times, I could trust the process to tell me that. But now, you’re saying that we have to trust you. That’s fine. But just so we’re clear, you have to be right. You have to be right, because this is a big-ticket item that we didn’t put through the process.”

Officials for L3Harris—the vendor for the Miami-Dade police P25 system, which is in the process of being upgraded—said they cannot provide assurance that all features of the Motorola Solutions APX NEXT radios will work on L3Harris infrastructure.

Jayne Leighton, business development director for L3Harris, said this uncertainty was communicated to the Miami-Dade County Information Technology Department (ITD) during a June 16 meeting between ITD officials, Motorola Solutions and L3Harris.

All features of the Motorola Solutions APX NEXT devices should work on the Miami-Dade fire system built by Motorola Solutions. Standard P25 features also should work on the police system built by L3Harris, but non-standard features in the APX NEXT may not, as the capabilities have not been tested with the latest version of software on the L3Harris network, Leighton said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications.

L3Harris officials attended yesterday’s Miami-Dade commission meeting, but their requests to speak during the meeting were not accepted, Leighton said. L3Harris first learned that a contract for Motorola Solutions was being considered last Monday, July 11, she said.

Aaron Williams, senior sales director for L3Harris, told IWCE’s Urgent Communications that “we have no contractual obligation to make this work.”

Motorola Solutions did not respond to a request for comment from IWCE’s Urgent Communications in time to be included in this article.