Public Safety False Alarm Reduction
Achievement Award:
Winner
Palm Bay Police Department, Palm Bay, Florida
Nominated by: Stan Hanson, Alarm Administrator, City of Palm Bay
Rationale: The City of Palm Bay’s False Alarm Reduction Unit respectfully submits the following information for consideration of FARA’s Public Safety False Alarm Reduction Achievement Award. We believe the information submitted within this nomination will show how much effort by the unit and the officers of Palm Bay have significantly reduced the total number of false alarm responses over a three to five year period.
Palm Bay’s current false alarm ordinance has been in effect since October 2000. At the time of it’s inception, this department then served a city population of approximately 79,500 residents. Within a short four year span, the City of Palm Bay, the second largest city in Brevard County, Florida, has reached a milestone of exceeding over 91,000. This indicates a growth rate of approximately 7% yearly and will continue at a healthy pace.
The City of Palm Bay began a campaign in 1999 after experiencing approximately 6,000 false alarm activations within the year. However, actual response was lowered to 4650 false alarms. As a result of this finding, discussion was opened between the police department and the city council on the need to get a grasp of this flourishing problem that was both time-consuming and extremely expensive for the city police and fire departments. By October 2000, a newly formed Alarm Ordinance was put into motion after much time, effort and fact-finding was all brought together. The alarm administrator at that time did an excellent job in getting input from the local security and alarm companies. She had the awesome task of implementing a new city ordinance that would prove to be at first very un-popular with residents who owned monitored alarm systems. It was also a task to get the local alarm companies to register their customers. Since this is not a utopia, we still strive to register every monitored alarm system in Palm Bay.
Our success story does lie within the true numbers of reduced false alarm responses since 1999. At that time, 4650 responses were recorded. We are proud to report that at the end of calendar year 2004, our false alarm responses have been reduced by 2591 or 56%. Our recorded false alarm response at the end of calendar year 2004 was 2059. Our False Alarm Analysis Program report entitled “FAAP Alarm Project Summary” produces false alarm reduction results that cover a three-year period. The report submitted with this nomination, covers the calendar years 2002 through 2004. The report indicates a reduction in false alarm responses by 15.30%, or 372 responses. At the same time, our alarm user database has increased by 36.1% or 1875 alarm users.
This unit would also like to point out the false alarm factors for the three consecutive years from 2002 to 2004. Our false alarm factor for commercial properties in 2002 was recorded at 1.09, with residential at .35. This gave us a combined false alarm factor of .47 per system. In the next year to follow in 2003, our commercial false alarm factor per registered system was reduced to .89%, with residential now reduced to .27% with a combined factor of .37%. The final false alarm factor as indicated in our FAAP Alarm Project Summary indicated a further reduction for calendar year 2004. Our commercial factor was recorded to be 0.68% and residential factor reduced to 0.21%., with a combined factor of .29%. (Please view FAAP Project Summary Report as submitted as proof and reference to substantiate this nomination request).
We would also like to mention the increase in revenue this office has created as a result of due diligence in trying to keep up with accounts that fall delinquent. During our past Fiscal Year that ended on 9/30/04, this office brought in a total of 151.9% revenue for fines, thus exceeding our finance department’s estimate by 51.9%. On the registration fee side of revenue, we also exceeded expectations by 8.1%. These figures covered fiscal year 10/1/03 to 9/30/04.
This office implemented a method of delinquency collection involving commercial accounts back in April of 2003. This new means of collections, as was published in FARA’s Newsletter back in Oct. 2003 in an article entitled “Problems with Delinquent Accounts? Look Beyond your Alarm Ordinance”, helped bring in slightly over $12,000 in commercial delinquencies. This was ultimately responsible for the overage in revenue stated earlier for fines collected. (see copy of story submitted for Oct.’03 FARA Newsletter).
There are two other factors I would like to mention briefly that have helped this unit tremendously in gaining some success in false alarm reduction. The first are press releases to our local media at different times of the year to keep our citizenry both informed and enlightened on our successes and our stumbling blocks. We make an effort to inform the public either via press releases or by our Website, that we are here and here to stay and the reasons for our existence. The second, and probably the most inspiring aspect in helping this unit with finding its direction, is our involvement with the FARA. Until this administrator became familiar with FARA and what it represented and the many colleagues and friends and contacts made as a result of joining this wonderful organization, I felt like a blind person in a black tunnel. We thank FARA for its existence and what it means to law enforcement support staff involved in false alarm reduction.
We ask that we be considered for FARA’s Public Safety False Alarm Reduction Achievement Award to be awarded in the near future. The City of Palm Bay Florida will continue to strive to reduce false alarm responses to assure the safety of those who must respond, never knowing what awaits them on scene. Safety to our Police Officers, Fire Fighters and our Citizens is our number one concern at all times.
Supporting Documents
October 2003- FARA InfoLink
Problems with Delinquent Commercial Accounts?
Look Beyond your Alarm Ordinance.
By Stan Hanson, Alarm Administrator, City of Palm Bay, FL.
When I first took on the task of Alarm Administration this past January ’03, I had to sit back to absorb all that came with the position. As you all know, one of those difficult tasks involve the collection of delinquent fees and fines. You may be one of the lucky ones to have your delinquencies handled by a third party agency or company. However, collections, be it residential or commercial, are worked directly by me.
I discovered that my predecessor attempted to collect commercial delinquencies as our alarm ordinance dictated. However, after noting that our ordinance does not specifically dictate any more than suspension of police response for general intrusion activations, I had to find another means by which to address the delinquency dilemma. I realized that all local businesses, be it a mom and pop business or a national chain, all must first apply for an Occupational License in order to conduct business in our city. The license application is covered under the license ordinance, which does stipulate certain procedures, rules and regulations by which all applicants must abide.
After reading the rules and regulations for about ten minutes, I came upon a particular section that triggered a thought. A particular section of the Occupational License Ordinance stipulates that all those who hold such a license issued by the city must not violate any other city or county ordinances or laws of the state in the practice of business for which such license is issued. The section went on to note that any business that fails to abide by this particular portion of the ordinance might have their business license suspended or revoked.
It is also stipulated in the section entitled “City Not Liable For Damages For Losses From Revocation,” that revocation of one’s business license shall require them to cease operation within the city. Since the business license ordinance specifically addresses a possible penalty for the violation of any other city ordinance, I felt I hoped to have discovered another source in which to collect outstanding commercial delinquencies. I approached my superiors with my thoughts regarding the possible use of this particular section of the business license as sort of a “new tool of the trade” in the ongoing problem of collecting on outstanding false alarm fines of commercial businesses.
Fortunately, they had the foresight of recognizing the possible impact this could have on collecting revenue due this agency by those delinquent accounts. I then had to decide on the method by which I could utilize another department’s ordinance. Before any further action was taken, I sought the advice of our city attorney to make sure we would be on proper legal ground in the attempt by which to employ another city ordinance outside the realm of the alarm ordinance. He agreed that it would be legally sound for me to construct a letter to delinquent commercial accounts in which I mention the particular section dealing with the suspension or revocation of their occupational license if they fail to comply with the alarm ordinance.
After constructing such a letter, I first “tested the waters” with one delinquent account holder. I chose a particular commercial account that maintains three locations within our city and all were not in compliance with our alarm ordinance. This specific account holder had fines that totaled in excess of $1,000. It should be noted that this one business owner failed to communicate with our office for over one year after many attempts by my predecessor. However, within seven days of this business venture receiving my collection letter that mentioned possible suspension or revocation of their occupational license, all outstanding fines and fees due the alarm office had been paid in full. Yes, the mere mention of the city’s ability to implement the penalty phase of one’s business license did bring positive results to this office.
Since our city renews occupational licenses on a fiscal year basis, we mailed out the same type of letter to all other delinquent commercial alarm accounts. That mailing took place this past June and July. Within those two months, the alarm office collected over $12,000 in delinquent fines dues. Our account base totals slightly over 6,100 alarm accounts. The point I am attempting to put across to other alarm administrators or supervisors, is to “think out of the box” when it comes to working collections. Investigate the possibility of utilizing your city or county ordinances to your advantage. This is not to say that all delinquencies will magically disappear, but it is sure worth the effort to utilize all sources at hand when having to deal with them on a daily basis. I hope this may be a bit of food for thought that may bring some success to your collection efforts.
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