GEMA urges Legislature to fund NextGen 911 buildout and statewide school-safety database

Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security officials told the Senate appropriations panel that the state is behind on Next Generation 911 capabilities and asked for amended-year funds to begin a statewide network build-out. The agency also outlined a far larger, multi-year proposal to establish a statewide school- and student-safety information system and to scale up behavioral threat assessment teams.

GEMA’s amended-budget request includes $5,750,000 to start network and core-service work needed for NextGen 911 at public-safety answering points that currently lack the physical and application infrastructure to route text and data as well as voice calls. The agency said third‑party procurement analyses place the state-wide range between about $3.9 million and $12 million and that a resulting average estimate is roughly $8.03 million — leaving the governor’s $5.75 million recommendation below that average by about $2.3…