Carbon County officials will save more than $120,000 over the next three years on maintaining the county's 911 system.

On Thursday, the county commissioners voted to award a three-year public safety communications system maintenance contract to the lowest qualified bidder, Radio Maintenance Inc. of Reading, at a total cost of $237,000. The county will pay $81,000 for 2017 maintenance, $79,000 for 2018 and $77,000 for 2019.The county currently pays $119,718 for the maintenance of the system. The current contract expires at the end of the year.Commissioner William O'Gurek pointed out that Radio Maintenance was not the lowest bidder for the contract.After review of the bids, it was determined that the lowest bidder, RF Design and Integration Inc. of Bensalem, who submitted a bid of $221,544, did not meet all bidding requirements and was disqualified from the bids.Carbon County Commissioners opened the bids for the contract on Oct. 20. Besides RF Design and Radio Maintenance, other bids were received from Green's Communications of Pottsville for $245,519.88; and current contract holder, TuWay Communications of Bethlehem, $361,314.TuWay Communications currently does the maintenance on the entire operations, including routine, emergency call-outs and more.