Lawmakers press Cal OES on delayed Next Generation 9-1-1 as vendors and analysts disagree over statewide plan

Chair Ransom convened the California State Assembly Emergency Management Committee to examine delays and a recent shift in strategy for the state's Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) program, pressing officials and vendors to explain what went wrong and how to move forward.

Steve Yarbrough, deputy director of public safety communications at the California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), told the committee that early regional rollouts produced trouble tickets showing misrouted and dropped calls and degraded audio. He said Cal OES paused further transitions to reassess the architecture and is proposing a single statewide provider model aligned with National Emergency Number Association (NENA) best practices. "Our strategy is updating to reflect the lessons that we've learned from early deployment and aligns California system with national standards," Yarbrough said, and he cited a 99.999% uptime target as the performance metric for the eventual statewide partner.

Heather Gonzales, principal fiscal and policy analyst at the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO), urged caution. The LAO's written assessment and testimony noted the project is overdue, future budget needs are unclear and key trade-offs have not been…