Based on these findings and the Subcommittee's recommendation, the Commission, in conjunction with NTIA, chartered the Public Safety Wireless Advisory Committee (PSWAC or Advisory Committee). The PSWAC has wide participation from all segments of the public safety community, including, police, fire, and other emergency services representatives. In addition the committee has manufacturers' representatives and other interested parties. The Advisory Committee will draw on the combined expertise of local, state and Federal officials to provide reasoned and sound advice to the Commission and NTIA on specific wireless operational needs, options to provide for greater interoperability, options to accommodate the growth of basic and emerging services, and total spectrum requirements to achieve these objectives. The PSWAC's five subcommittees --Operational Requirements, Technical, Spectrum Requirements, Transition, and Interoperability-- are now in the process of finalizing their reports for inclusion in the final report of the PSWAC. Within the next 30 days, the draft final report will be submitted to the PSWAC Steering Committee for final review and approval. The FCC and NTIA are scheduled to receive the report formally by September 15, 1996.

Because of the ongoing nature of the Advisory Committee's work, the Commission felt that it would be inappropriate to prejudge PSWAC's efforts by issuing what would have been an incomplete report to Congress. In our view, the Advisory Committee's efforts represent a far better procedure than having any Federal agency attempt to make such important decisions and recommendations absent input from the radio spectrum users. After the affected community has fully aired the issues and presented its conclusions to the FCC and NTIA through the PSWAC Final Report, FCC and NTIA can report those findings to Congress and begin a process to attempt to satisfy those needs.

In addition to creating the Advisory Committee, the Commission also adopted a Notice of Proposed Rule Making specifically to implement Section 6002 of the Budget Act. This Notice was designed to gather the information needed to evaluate the spectrum needs of public safety agencies and identify possible solutions. This overall assessment of public safety wireless communications, which builds on the findings and conclusions in our 1995 Report and Plan, will include consideration of the Advisory Committee's Report to the Commission and NTIA. We are currently accepting comments from Federal, state and local public safety agencies, and all interested parties, in this matter. After considering all the comments in this proceeding, the Commission will adopt a Report and Order that will define the Commission's plans for meeting the needs of the public safety community through the year 2010.

Question: What risks are we taking by transferring more of the government spectrum for auction without knowing what the public safety needs are?

Answer: The risks are minimal. Even if spectrum were to be transferred' immediately, a full notice and comment rule making

would be required before the spectrum would actually be allocated for non-Federal use. Given the September 15, 1996, date to receive the PSWAC Final Report, the needs of the public safety community should be known before any new spectrum would actually be reallocated. In fact, the timing for both activities could converge perfectly such that the public safety needs would become an integral part of the reallocation decisions.

Question: Do you have an estimate of the cost to law enforcement agencies to change their technologies to utilize the spectrum remaining available for their use?

Answer: Depending on each individual agency's specific needs, the costs of future public safety wireless equipment could be quite low. We have crafted our rules to allow public safety agencies transition to new technologies to correspond with regular equipment replacement cycles. Users will have the option of continuing to use existing equipment, transitioning immediately to more efficient equipment, or waiting until more advanced equipment becomes available and costs become more competitive before changing out their systems. Public safety agencies that wish to wait to replace existing equipment until their equipment wears out or is amortized have the flexibility to do so under our rules. This allows a natural transition to migrate to more efficient systems within each public safety agency's normal radio system replacement cycle. If a public safety agency wanted to take advantage of newer more efficient equipment before that, it could do so. But if a public safety agency waits to buy new more spectrum-efficient equipment until the usual time to replace or improve its mobile units or its whole system, it would only incur the costs it usually does at that point. In theory then, except for a potential higher cost for more sophisticated equipment, the transition could be no extra cost for the agencies, as the costs would already be programmed into budgets for replacement equipment.

Relocation of Headquarters

Question: Your budget requests $30 million for fiscal year 1997 to begin relocation of headquarters. What is the total cost estimate to complete the relocation and when is the relocation scheduled to be completed? Please provide a detailed breakout and narrative description (by object class) of the total costs of the relocation, as well as a detailed schedule for the relocation.

Answer: We estimate it will cost a total of $40 million to complete the consolidation to Portals. The lease which GSA executed with Republic Properties states the leased space must be ready for initial occupancy no later than eighteen (18) months from the commencement of construction, and all of the space must be ready for complete occupancy no later than seven (7) months from initial occupancy. Commencement of construction began in May 1996, and we have just been advised by GSA the initial occupancy will not occur as originally stated for July 1997. Initial occupancy is now

slated around November 1997, and the complete occupancy would therefore occur by June 1998. This is all predicated upon Republic maintaining their construction schedule and no occurrences of delay. We cannot currently provide you with a detailed relocation schedule since we are awaiting receipt of the construction schedule from Portals and GSA which is expected the week of June 10, 1996. Once we have received and reviewed the construction schedule, we will be preparing the relocation schedule.

Fiscal Year 1997 Relocation Costs

Object Class 23:
Rents, Communications
Utilities

(Dollars in Thousands)

Original $3,607 Revised $0

Provides one-time costs for utilities and bridge rent to relocate our six (6) headquarters facilities to the Portals. Due to the fragmentation of our organization between our existing buildings, we cannot vacate whole buildings at a time in tandem with the available occupancy of completed floors at Portals. Therefore, we will try to vacate floors or large portions of our existing buildings which would be suitable to GSA for re-lease. (Bridge Rent costs moved to Fiscal Year 1998)

Object Class 25:
Other Services

Original $13,671 Revised $10,270 Provides one-time costs for contract services to relocate to the Portals including Architectural and Engineering (A&E) Management Support Services; guard services; information technology and telecommunication systems contract services for the installation of communication lines for voice and data; construction of a consolidated public reference center, library, high density file rooms; development and installation of central and decentralized computer facilities, the computer network and security systems. (Some installation of equipment and furnishings moved to Fiscal Year 1998)

Object Class 26:
Supplies and Materials

Original $2,392 Revised $1,702

Provides one-time costs for supplies and materials for the relocation of the headquarters facilities to the Portals including cabling for voice and data communications, carpet tile, reference room file materials, office accessories, etc. (Purchase of some office accessories moved to Fiscal Year 1998)

Object Class 31:
Equipment

Original $10,330 Revised $7,028

Provides one-time costs for systems furniture and high density storage files required for the relocation to the Portals. (Does not include storage, shipping, installation cost reflected in other object classifications.) (Purchase of some systems furniture moved to Fiscal Year 1998)

Total Fiscal Year 1997 Request

Original $30,000 Revised $19,000

Due to the information we just received from GSA changing our expected initial occupancy date, we have revised the total costs we need for fiscal year 1997 from $30 million to $19 million. The difference of $11 million will be deferred from our fiscal year 1997 requirements into fiscal year 1998. We still estimate $40 million total will be required to complete the relocation to the Portals. The $19,000 represents the minimum amount of funding necessary to proceed with the project. Failure to appropriate the funding at this revised level will require the Agency to reject the space assignment to the Portals. Funds are not available to reprogram to address this initiative.

We will be installing approximately 2,000 systems furniture workstations. Other similar installations have been completed recently by the same vendor selected to handle the FCC at Department of Treasury (1,500 systems furniture workstations), NOAA (6,500 systems furniture workstations), FAA (3,500 systems furniture workstations), Department of State (1,500 systems furniture workstations), and IRS (5,000 systems furniture workstations). All of these had comparable per unit costs to the FCC planned installation. A picture of the type of systems furniture workstations the FCC, and these other Agencies, will be using is attached.

Question: How much of your base in fiscal 1996 is currently being used to plan for the relocation and for what activities is this funding being used?

Answer: We are not currently using any fiscal 1996 funds to plan for the relocation.