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Charles County, MD, Doubles Alarm Registration and False Alarm Fines

Charles County, MD, commissioners recently doubled the financial penalties for false alarms and registration fees for alarms systems. 

Last week, a unanimous vote by the board amended the false alarm ordinance to include an increase of the business alarm fine from $150 to $300, and a jump in licensing fees for the business alarm from $50 to $100. The approved changes also increase business alarm reinstatement fees from $100 to $200.

"They're just not complying," said William Stephens, director of emergency services for the county. "We're trying to give them greater incentive to register alarms."

From a survey of 11 jurisdictions, Stephens learned Charles County had markedly lower penalties that its neighbors; the average is $405 for an alarm business fine and $110 for a licensing fee.

"Ultimately the reduction in false alarms is what we're after, not creating a funding source," said Commissioner Samuel N. Graves Jr. (D).

A synopsis presented by Stephens indicated the fiscal 2009 fees totaled $48,900. With the approved hike in fines, it's anticipated the county will bring in $97,800 for fiscal 2010.

"We've been pretty successful in this county getting private businesses to clean up some antiquated alarm systems that were giving us a lot of false alarms … so your program has had a lot of success and I applaud you for that," Graves said. "Raising the fees... maybe this will be the way to make fines steep enough to make [installation companies] start complying because it's important they feed that information in upfront, and the user doesn't get caught up in the tail end and have steeper fines."

In the last 12 months there have been a little more than 8,000 calls for answering alarms, according to sheriff's office spokeswoman Diane Richardson, and a significant percentage, which she said she did not have exactly, are false alarm calls.

"We do respond to each and every call," said Richardson. "If we can eliminate those [false alarm calls] that certainly frees up those officers for patrol."

Stephens' office directs the county's false alarm reduction unit which is made up of police, fire and emergency services representatives.

For every alarm system an alarm business handles, it must register with the reduction unit or face a penalty for each system and alarm dispatch request issued for an unregistered setup.

"We have some of our alarm companies, who for whatever reason do not pay their fines when they fail to comply with the terms of the [reduction unit] ordinance," Stephens told the commissioners. "The second reason [for the modifications] is that the Charles County Board of Education made an inquiry to us."

Public schools spokeswoman Katie O'Malley-Simpson confirmed that false alarms caused by flukes such as rogue birds, bad weather or human error have proven costly for the schools.

"We are pleased there is another level of appeal," O'Malley-Simpson said.

She also said that on Tuesday the system was told it would not be exempt from the new fines.

O'Malley-Simpson said the school board would send a letter to the commissioners requesting an exemption.

She also said the schools would work to keep the false alarms to a minimum, as they are aware of the cost, manpower and safety issues to the emergency services and sheriff's personnel.

"It wasn't our intent to harm any government agency such as our government buildings or schools. However, we need to work with these agencies that are having problems to identify what they are," said Charles County commissioners' President F. Wayne Cooper (D). "The fines were impacting them, and with the budget crunches that's why they said something. They don't have the money to pay the fines … if we didn't have the budget crunch we probably wouldn't have addressed any of this."

The amendment also adds another level of appeal for cases by giving Stephens' office a say in the final ruling on false alarm scenarios with mitigating circumstances.

"This additional level of appeal is for anybody, but it will help the school district," Stephens said.