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St. Mary's County accepts $60,000 from Constellation and switches emergency alerts from Code Red to Regroup
Summary
The commissioners accepted two $30,000 donations from Constellation/Exelon for emergency preparedness and approved a subscription with Regroup to replace the decommissioned Code Red platform after a vendor cyberattack; IPAWS alerts remain available via the Maryland Joint Operations Center.
St. Mary's County commissioners voted Jan. 6 to accept two donor payments of $30,000 each from Constellation (formerly Exelon) to support local emergency preparedness related to the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant and to approve a subscription agreement with Regroup for mass emergency notifications.
Director Jen Utts of the Department of Emergency Services said the county receives unsolicited donations of $30,000 annually from Constellation to support preparedness and response work tied to the Calvert Cliffs plant; through fiscal review the county discovered calendar-year 2024 funds had not previously been presented for commissioner approval. Utts said none of the funds for either 2024 or 2025 had been expended and that the funds are accounted for in the county budget.
A commissioner moved to accept the two donations (project codes O22510 and OT2610) totaling $60,000 and to execute the budget amendments; the motion was seconded and approved by voice vote.
Utts and staff next explained the county's emergency notification vendor situation. On Nov. 10, 2025, the Code Red platform (OnSolve) experienced a vendor cyberattack and was permanently decommissioned, Utts said, although there was no indication county systems or databases were impacted. Staff and IT recommended Regroup as a replacement vendor; Regroup can roll over the existing enrollment database, supports reverse-911 geolocation-based calls and texts, and costs less over a comparable term, staff said. The board approved a subscription agreement with Regroup and authorized the commissioner president to sign related documents.
Utts noted that IPAWS (Integrated Public Alert and Warning System) alerts remain available via the Maryland Joint Operations Center during the transition so the county is not wholly without an alert capability.
Votes on both the donation acceptance and the Regroup subscription were unanimous by voice vote.
