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Commissioners table $4.1 million 911 phone system upgrade after questions on cost and vendor comparisons
Summary
St. Joseph County 911 staff proposed a cloud-based AT&T Vesta NXT phone system priced just under $4.1 million for 32 positions; commissioners expressed concern about the price and requested more vendor comparisons and formal proposals, then voted to table the item.
Deputy Director of Operations Nicholas Broald presented a proposal to replace the county’s 911 phone system with AT&T Vesta NXT, a cloud-based system that the 911 team said would offer redundancy across multiple U.S. servers, live call transcription, real-time language translation and a built-in mapping tool.
"This new Vesta NXT system is cloud-based...we'll be simultaneously connected at four different servers around the US," Broald said, listing features intended to reduce the odds of outage and improve call-location accuracy and remote-work capability. He said the total project cost was presented as "just under $4.1 million" and that a 3% discount would apply if the county paid in a lump sum.
Several commissioners said they were concerned about the magnitude of the expense and asked whether staff had solicited formal proposals from other vendors for comparison. One commissioner said: "$4.1 million...I just stagger at that." Broald and other staff said they had demoed other systems and considered customer-service issues and local support; staff argued familiarity with the Vesta platform and local vendor support weighed into the recommendation.
Commissioners moved to table the item to allow staff to collect more information and provide side-by-side comparisons. The motion to table passed with affirmative votes by Commissioners Morton, Hayen and Baxter.
