WAUPUN — The Waupun City Council approved the purchase of new police radios and body cameras, among other items, at the Common Council meeting on January 13, 2026.
The Waupun Police Department provided quotes for four Kenwood Viking VP8000 Dual Band Portable Radios and three VM8000 EF Johnson Multi Band Squad Car Radios. Both items would be purchased through Nielson Communications Inc. for the total price of $28,067.68, including product programming and setup.
Alderman Pete Kaczmarski asked how many more the Department needed to buy to complete the upgrade. Police Chief Jeremy Rasch said about $70,000 worth total between 2027 and 2028. Kaczmarski asked about the quality of the same model equipment that they’ve purchased previously, to which Rasch said they’ve had no issues.
The City Council then approved the purchase of a new squad camera and four new body cameras from Safe Fleet/Coban Technologies. The purchase would total $8,420.00 for all of the new cameras.
“With the county-wide radio program, we have to replace our radios,” Chief Rasch said after the meeting. “Right now, we’re in that transition and we’ve been budgeting to purchase three or four radios every year, but there is an end date where we have to get to the 7800mH channel by the first of January of 2030.”
“Right now the Police Department is purchasing radios to transition the handheld radios and the squad car radios,” he said. “It’s kind of a long term process, so we’ll go first and the Fire Department will pick it up afterwards. Hopefully the grant that we applied for $50,000 will help complete that project.”
To replace the remaining equired equipment, they will need five more handheld radios and seven more squad car radios.
“As for the body cameras and the squad cameras, the body cameras are kind of a normal replacement,” Rasch said. “Pretty much a camera is going to last for two or three years, so if you get them for three or four years you would be happy. And you have to remember, we only started that program in 2022, and we’ve already had a few fail that we’ve already had to replace.”
“It’s interesting how our profession has changed with technology and now you’ve got to look at it a lot closer, just because the replacement programs are much more important than years ago,” he said. “A handheld radio can last forever, but if you’re switching to a new system with new frequencies, then you need to buy all new equipment to meet that.”
Information on all purchased items along with invoices was included in the meeting agenda packet.
The 2026 Fire and Rescue Department Equipment and Personnel Billable Rate Schedule was also passed at the meeting, along with amendments to the Paid-On-Call EMR Compensation Plan and Paid-On-Call Firefighter Compensation plans.
“Some of those changes are to align with how we’re paying our firefighters to keep the same pay date for the entire group,” said Fire Chief BJ DeMaa following the meeting. “And some of the other changes are the way it’s currently run, we just want to make sure it’s in writing so as spaces change that everybody knows the intent behind the policy and keep it consistent moving forward.”
The Waupun Fire Department also recently completed the merge with the township community fire departments of Town of Chester, Town of Trenton, and Town of Waupun. The City Council approved the agreement back in October, with the Townships signing the agreement in December. The reorganization went into effect on January 1, 2026.
“All in all, it went well—good conversation was held between both the City and the townships through that entire process,” DeMaa said about the merger. “At the end of the day, it’s a win for everybody—there’s more accurate cost sharing for the building and activity that happens there, but additionally for the townships it’s going to eliminate some of the duplicated equipment. There’s an engine they would have been due to replace and they’re not going to have to replace that anymore. So, it’s a better approach as we talk about rising equipment costs.”
The Waupun Police Department also attended the Fond du Lac County Executive Law Enforcement Association in-service training, held at the former UW Fond du Lac Campus this week. A total of 126 law enforcement officers from law enforcement agencies in Fond du Lac County participated in the training, which covered topics such as drug trends, legal updates, mobile crisis response, and digital forensics.
