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Legislature approves $1.2 million to move backup 9-1-1 equipment after outages
Summary
Cayuga County lawmakers authorized a $1.2 million transfer from fund balance to relocate backup 9-1-1 equipment to a City of Auburn facility after recent power and generator failures left the county's backup system inoperable.
Cayuga County legislators voted on Aug. 27, 2025, to transfer $1.2 million from the county fund balance to relocate backup 9-1-1 equipment to a new site in the City of Auburn and to pay for removal, reinstallation and associated IT work.
The move follows a recent power failure that knocked key systems offline in the county's current backup facility, testimony on the floor said. Legislators said the county faces the risk of losing critical public-safety infrastructure if the equipment remains in the county office building basement.
"The backup system that we designed, built, and hopefully never had to use...needed it, and it didn't work. It's unacceptable," Legislator Straub said during the meeting, describing a recent outage that affected Internet and access to records at the 9-1-1 center.
Supporters of the relocation argued that the expense is necessary to protect equipment they estimated is worth "$7 or $8 million" and to ensure continuous operation of public-safety dispatch services. Those lawmakers said the cost could not be funded from operating budgets and that a transfer from fund balance was required to act quickly.
County staff described estimates from vendors and previously produced cost projections from the county's IT team and Motorola Solutions. The resolution authorizes the chair of the legislature to enter agreements and directs the finance director to transfer $1,200,000 from fund balance into the building account for this purpose. The measure passed on a roll-call vote.
Legislators said the relocation could take several months; officials asked that vendors and county staff prioritize the work because equipment outages have already affected operations.
