The Clark County Board of County Commissioners voted to approve and adopt a five-year 911 surcharge master plan intended to fund transition to NextGen 911, a digital system designed to handle text and video and provide better vertical location (Z-axis) information for callers.

Fire Chief Billy Samuels explained that the county's current analog 911 infrastructure has experienced significant outages, citing an April 2024 incident that disrupted service for about three and a half hours and caused the loss of roughly 20% of incoming calls. “We lost about 20% of our calls that came in through that system,” Samuels said while outlining operational gaps and the case for NextGen 911. He described NextGen benefits, including better pinpointing of callers in high-rises and improved dispatch interoperability among the county, Las Vegas Fire & Rescue and North Las Vegas emergency communications.

Chief Samuels and staff said the change would require a multi-step process, including drafting an ordinance, preparing a business-impact statement and municipal letters of support; staff estimated it would be about a 40-day process before the item returns to the board with more detail. Commissioner comments focused on ensuring ratepayers understand why a surcharge might be needed and on getting a breakdown of what the surcharge would fund.

A commissioner moved to approve and adopt the 911 surcharge five-year master plan; the motion was recorded as adopted in the transcript. Damon Harris of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department was noted to be available to answer fiscal questions but did not make a substantive fiscal presentation on the record.

Next steps: staff will prepare ordinance language, a business-impact statement and fiscal detail for a future public hearing that will include opportunities for public comment.