After years of missed deadlines and documented safety issues surrounding the rollout of California’s Next Generation 911 system, project insiders are now speaking out, saying they feel compelled to warn the public about “major problems” with the years-long overhaul that has cost Californians nearly a half-billion dollars and counting.
NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit has spoken to three inside sources with direct knowledge of the project. One of them agreed to speak on camera.
CA Next Gen 911 is a major upgrade of the state’s landline-based emergency call system to internet-based technology. The California Office of Emergency Services [Cal OES] promises it will improve call location accuracy and the ability for callers to send photos and videos of emergency scenes directly to dispatchers.
“Lives are at stake, property is at stake,” said the insider, who asked not to be identified because he’s actively working on the new network. “There’s too much going on that’s not right, and I just felt somebody needs to look into it.”
As NBC Bay Area reported Wednesday, there have been significant public safety issues in some of the locations where the new technology has been deployed, according to dispatch center records obtained by NBC Bay Area through the California Public Records Act.
In Tuolumne County, the first dispatch center to go live with NG911, two retired dispatchers who spoke to NBC Bay Area say they experienced frequent outages, dropped calls, and misrouted calls originating in places as far away as New York and Florida.
What went wrong?
“I think what went wrong was that they hired inexperienced companies,” said the insider.
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I think what went wrong was that they hired inexperienced companies
CA NG911 insider
Cal OES agreed to divvy up a maximum of $420 million among four separate companies to create the Next Generation 911 network in 2019. Those companies were Atos, CenturyLink (now Lumen), Synergem Technologies and NGA. Each company would be responsible for implementing the system in its own respective region of the state, with a 5th overarching “prime” region.
“Which, on paper, is a really, really good idea,” the insider said.
However, differences in each network, and a lack of coordination between each vendor, have led to ongoing issues the state and its contractors have yet to resolve, the insider said.
“So, the four companies that were picked, they're talking at each other, but they're not really talking to each other," he said. "They're all in their little silos planning their activities and planning their networks.”
And when networks don’t or can’t communicate, he said, the result is “misrouted calls, calls that don’t route at all, busy signals, dropped calls – which will cause a delay in help getting to your citizen that’s having a problem.”
The source works for a company with experience building similar networks and was brought in to help troubleshoot the issues that continue to arise on California’s ongoing NG911 project. His company was not selected as one of the primary vendors to create the new network, but he insists that’s not the reason he’s speaking out.
“We lose contracts all the time,” he said. “Public safety is not about making money.”
“I wouldn’t have called you if it was just something minor. There are major issues here.”
Concerns statewide
If what happened in Tuolumne County happens in big cities like San Francisco, Oakland or Los Angeles – or the more than 440 911 centers across California – the insider says the results would be catastrophic.
“That would basically freeze all emergency response,” he said. “Emergency response is based on 911 calls.”
The man originally behind the vision and execution of the state's NG911 project was Budge Currier, the former Cal OES Assistant Director of Public Safety Communications.
“Next Gen 911 was just a dream, and I was crazy enough to say, ‘Hey, I think I can make that dream a reality.” Currier said on a podcast produced by the agency in December 2021.
As NBC Bay Area also reported Wednesday, Cal OES recently parted ways with Currier in August. Neither Currier nor Cal OES would say why, but a spokesperson for the agency said the change in leadership would give them an opportunity to “reassess and reset.” Cal OES also parted ways with Currier’s direct supervisor at the agency, Marvin Greene, who also declined to comment when contacted by NBC Bay Area.
State public safety officials originally projected CA Next Gen 911 would be wrapped up by 2021. But three years later, few of the state’s more than 400 emergency dispatch centers are fully integrated with the new network.
In a recent interview with NBC Bay Area, Cal OES said the agency disagrees the project “is not on track” and that it will continue monitoring its contractors.
“I think some of the [project’s] barriers, again, would have befallen any of the contractors,” Cal OES Deputy Director of Crisis Communications Amy Palmer said. “If we need to improve contract oversight, we will. If we need to improve contractor performance, we will.”
NBC Bay Area requested interviews with each of the four companies hired by Cal OES to build its NG911 network.
Atos and Synergem did not respond. Lumen emailed a statement saying, in part, “We take this responsibility seriously and are committed to getting it right.”
NGA CEO defends project
The CEO of NGA, Don Ferguson, agreed to an interview, and adamantly defended the project and his company’s performance.
Ferguson conceded the project has fallen behind on its original schedule, but pointed out that nobody has ever taken on a NG911 project as big or ambitious as California’s, and said there were inevitable challenges that Cal OES and vendors encountered while switching over from the state’s legacy system.
“So, what you do is you engage in that problem, you handle it, and then you look at your schedule and see how you can roll,” Ferguson said. “It’s a large state.”
He was also more optimistic about the project’s future than the insider who spoke to NBC Bay Area on the condition of anonymity.
“I would agree that it’s not finished,” Ferguson said. “That it is far from being finished, I would say is not accurate.”
In Tuolumne County, NGA was in part the subject of a 2022 memo drafted by a frustrated 9-1-1 dispatch supervisor who complained about outages and “alarming” failures with the NGA system. One example, the manager pointed to, was a man attempting to report that his garage and surrounding vegetation were on fire.
“He called 9-1-1 five times and did not get through,” the memo states. “Situations like this CANNOT happen however, since the roll out of NGA they are all too common.”
Ferguson said he was aware of the memo and his company has met with the sheriff’s office to address their concerns.
In an email, the company said it was prohibited from discussing specific outages but added that "many of these challenges are tied to the legacy infrastructure being phased out as part of the NG-9-1-1 migration."
Ferguson said the work done to resolve issues in places like Tuolumne will accelerate the transition to NG911 for the rest of the state.
“This journey to Next Gen is certainly worth it,” Ferguson said. “The resilience that you're getting is above and beyond what legacy could ever offer. It is absolutely essential for the health, for the safety and well-being of the California citizens.”
Despite assurances from Cal OES and Ferguson that the project remains on track, the source who spoke to NBC Bay Area hasn’t been convinced by what he’s seen.
“My purpose isn’t to talk bad about Cal OES or the people that work there,” he said. “There comes a point when you have to say, ‘Ok, we’ve got to punt, we’ve got to figure this out, we’ve got to regroup, we’ve got to get a whole new game plan.’ And I’m trying to emphasize that’s what needs to happen. We can do it later when it’s only going to cost more money, or you can do it now and sort of salvage what’s already there. But it’s going to be a lot of work.”
If you want to contact Investigative Reporter Candice Nguyen about this report, email her at candice.nguyen@nbcuni.com.
