cover
TO: Mayor Robert J. O'Connor
FROM: Brian W. Caputo Chief Financial Officer/City Treasurer
DATE: February 9, 2017
SUBJECT:
An Ordinance Amending Chapter 17, Article IV Regarding Fire Alarm Systems and Chapter 36, Article IV Regarding Police Alarm Systems.
PURPOSE:
To obtain the City Council's approval of changes in false alarm fine amounts.
BACKGROUND:
The city's Fire and Police Departments respond to fire and police alarms, respectively. When these alarms are found to be false, the city currently imposes fines after the third false alarm as indicated in the next section of this memorandum.
Alarms may be false for a variety of reasons. These reasons include mechanical malfunctions and inadvertent activations. When the city's firefighters and police officers are deployed in response to false alarms, they are not available for legitimate public safety needs. The false alarm responses by city public safety personnel between 2010 and 2016 were:
Year
Fire
Police
2010
665
4,354
2011
397
4,451
2012
1,393
4,901
2013
1,542
4,218
2014
1,753
4,786
2015
1,708
4,671
2016
1,730
4,665
The city's fine rates for false fire and police alarms have not been adjusted since 1999 and 1997, respectively.
DISCUSSION:
The Fire and Police Departments would like to revise the schedule of false alarm fine rates so as to create an incentive to maintain alarm systems better and avoid inadvertent activations. Also, the Finance Department would like to adjust the provisions of the City Code related to late penalties so as to better correlate with current city billing practices and make late penalties applicable to both false and police fines. Currently, there is no provision in the City Code for late penalties to be applied to unpaid false police alarm fines.
The attachment presents the current fine and late fee schedule as well as the proposed schedule.
The attached, proposed ordinance would implement the schedule of proposed rates shown above.
IMPACT STATEMENT:
...
Click here for full text