PIERRE, SD (KELO.COM) South Dakota has stopped paying the company that is upgrading the state's 9-1-1 emergency communications system.
The 9-1-1 Coordination Board says that NextGen Communications, Inc. is not fixing in a timely fashion several recurring problems with the multi-million dollar upgrade. Until the state is satisfied, it will be witholding NextGen's scheduled payments of $295,000 a month.
Since 2015, the state has paid the vendor $7.4 million to design, build and maintain a statewide Next Generation 9-1-1 system. The new 9-1-1 system will equip all of the state’s 28 Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) with Next Generation (NEXTGEN) 9-1-1 technology. This new technology will allow the PSAPs to share information and data easier, provide back up to one another and eventually accept textto 9-1-1 messages when a phone call to 9-1-1 isn’t possible.
The Coordination Board says that while there have been problems with the upgrade work in some areas, the 9-1-1 system still functions statewide.