After COVID I don't think there's going to be a lot of money available to fund new projects of any kind unless it's necessary.
You may well be right. Here locally (Dallas, TX), the city and county agreed to build a new P25 Phase II system. This decision came out a couple of years ago, and the system was supposed to be operational this fall. However, they are well behind schedule, not even starting, as far as I see, on building or acquiring the sites necessary for the simulcast (many of them will be on existing towers, but in certain areas, a new site will have to be built for coverage). Dallas took somewhere in the $35 to $40 million dollar range hit from last October's tornado that went through the northern part of the city. Their application for FEMA assistance was denied, as not meeting requirements for funding. The governor is appealing that, but who knows.
Plus, a significant part of the city budget comes from sales tax revenue, which has also taken a dive during the pandemic. That affects the state as well, both on sales tax, as well as revenues from oil & gas production, which have declined both due to drops in the oil price, as well as lesser demand as people are driving less. Adding that loss of revenue to the toll of replacing damaged assets has lead the city to scramble and see where budget cuts can be made, even to the point of cutting back expenditures for public safety agencies.
After being an avid Broadcastify listener for a while now, I'm considering buying my first scanner. I live in the SF Bay Area, and my regional pulbic safety radio system is on P25 Phase I. I'm looking at scanners that are Phase I only. My question is whether or not Phase I systems will be around for some time yet, or if Phase I is just a stepping stone to Phase II, in which case I'll regret not buying a Phase II capable scanner within a few years.
I don't know anything about the technical details of either system and so I don't know if my question makes any sense at all from a technical perspective. I am interested to hear from those who DO know those technical details.
As others have mentioned, P25 is here to stay. In my area, all the new systems recently activated are Phase II, and most of the ones that have been P25 Phase I are on a path to upgrade as well.
For those that live in a rural area, they may not have to deal with Phase II systems yet, and possibly no trunked systems of any kind. But if you occasionally travel, and take your scanner, it's pretty much a certainty that you will encounter a Phase II system if your travels take you to or through one of the larger urban areas. Other than a few analog scanners, such as the BC125AT (which also is incapable of handling even an analog trunked system), both Uniden and Whistler are concentrating on Phase II capable units. Of course, there is a considerable market of used (but good condition) Phase I only scanners, but only buy one of those if you are confident that you will not need Phase II capability in the near future.