MARSHALL — A proposal to purchase a new radio paging system for Lyon County emergency responders came back with a higher price tag than anticipated.

The overage would be the cost of moving the city of Balaton’s radio antenna to a better location, Sheriff Eric Wallen told county commissioners this week.

Even with the cost increase, commissioners accepted a quote of about $265,000 for the paging system.

In June, Wallen and emergency responders including firefighters from around Lyon County spoke in support of switching to a simulcast paging system. The new system would allow emergency pages to go out over multiple radio towers at once. Wallen and area firefighters said the simulcast would be less time-consuming for dispatchers, and be less likely to overload the county radio system.

County commissioners approved up to $260,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funding for the updated paging system.

However, on Tuesday Wallen said the proposal had hit a hurdle. The new paging system needed the radio antennas to be in a line of sight with each other, and the Balaton antenna was too low to connect with the city of Russell’s radio antenna.

Wallen said the city of Balaton agreed to move the antenna from the Balaton fire hall to the city water tower. However, moving the antenna and building a shed to house the control equipment would add to the final cost for the project.

Instead of coming in under $263,000, the final quote from West Central Communications came in at $265,859.

Commissioners voted to accept the quote for the paging system.