NEW ULM — Brown County Commissioners unanimously approved a 2026 upgrade contract and 2027-2029 public alerting program agreement with Everbridge Tuesday.

The Brown County Sheriff’s Office and Emergency Management began using Nixle, for county messaging in 2018. Nixle also served as a gateway for emergency mass notification through FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) with wireless emergency alerts on cell phones and the emergency alert system that creates TV crawling message and radio interruptions.

Brown County Emergency Manager Shawn Stoermann said Everbridge acquired Nixle several years ago and recently indicated it would no longer update Nixle which was a separate alerting platform.

Everbridge did not state a Nixle end of service date, prompting Brown County Emergency Management to examine other emergency messaging vendors.

After three companies were reviewed and two were invited to give presentations to county sheriff’s office message users, county administration and IT departments, Everbridge was selected because it met all county IT department conditions.

“The 2026 contract is to upgrade to Everbridge which includes three additional channels for three county departments that expressed the need to have their own county channels,” said Stoermann.

He said Brown County has “locked-in” prices for the 2027-2029 contract.

Stoermann said the county’s 11-month 2026 public safety alerting program with Everbridge 360 effective April 1 will cost the county $1,676.57 due to a $6,595.50 upgrade credit. Annual county fees for 2027-2029 are $9,539.95 per year.

Everbridge contract approval came on a motion by Commissioner Dave Borchert, seconded by Jeff Veerkamp.

“I strongly support this after several larger Minnesota counties had challenges with alerting companies. It’s an extremely important topic,” said Borchert.