Georgia wants $1.00 per month on every monitored acct.

[Norm Mugford]

What's the consensus of the professionals in this group about
Georgia House Bill 1139 authored by Representative Childers introduced
on January 15, 2004.

The bill reads "(b)Each person or company which services, maintains,
operates,
or leases as lessor any burglary alarm system, fire alarm system, or other
electronic
security system shall, in addition to any other licensing fee, pay to the
county or
municipal corporation in which such system is installed a fee of $1.00 per
month for each such system to offset the cost to such political subdivision
caused
by false alarms sounded by such systems".

Norm Mugford
Board Member - Florida Electrical Contractors Licensing Board.
[email protected]

 

[Jackcsg]

Sounds retarded to me. $ 12.00 per year for false alarms. They should charge
per incident. Most Municipalities are of the three strike rule. After 3 it's
a fine. After 10 your suspended.

We've (many group members) been having this discussion here for a while with
regards to false alarms. Determining who's accountable for them. What should
be done in an effort towards ratifying a solution. Legislators are turning
to a fine system because the alarm industry doesn't feel the need to be
accountable for these issues. While fines may prove to be a wake-up call,
the real issues are eliminating them, IMOP. Users contribute to a majority
of false alarms on the security side of things, but for me, I see bad
Maintenance as the leading cause on the fire alarm side of things. Right now
the Industry is being accused of being wrong 98 percent of the time. While
answers will vary in this forum, who's accountable is first on the list.
Only then can the second phase be implementation of some form of action be
taken.

I'm curious Norm, what's your perspective on these issues coming from the
Inspector side of things? Do you, or do you feel some, if any steps from the
side of Installation your influence could make a difference? Personally, I
don't feel it's the installation part creating the burden, but rather the
methods. What are your thoughts?

Jack

 

[RH.Campbell]

I'm inclined to agree. I can't see the legitimacy of making all alarm users
pay for the sins of a few (or their alarm companies as the case may be). I
seems a fairer way to go to bring in rules that make the abuser pay. If you
simply spread the costs over every alarm user, where is the onus for those
that cause false alarms to improve things ? Users who mess up, pay the bill
for the false dispatch. Alarm companies who put in lousy systems that cause
the user to end up paying hefty fines, will eventually end up having to pay
for these false alarms, or lose the unhappy customer to a better company
(long term contract or not ....).

I may be missing something, but it seems simple enough to me.....

R.H.Campbell
Home Security Metal Products
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
www.homemetal.com

 

[Bossman]

What's the consensus of the professionals in this group about
Georgia House Bill 1139 authored by Representative Childers introduced
on January 15, 2004.

The bill reads "(b)Each person or company which services, maintains,
operates,
or leases as lessor any burglary alarm system, fire alarm system, or other
electronic
security system shall, in addition to any other licensing fee, pay to the
county or
municipal corporation in which such system is installed a fee of $1.00 per
month for each such system to offset the cost to such political subdivision
caused
by false alarms sounded by such systems".

Norm Mugford
Board Member - Florida Electrical Contractors Licensing Board.
[email protected]

It seems silly to add a monthly fee when you already have an annual
fee. Just add twelve dollars to the customer's yearly permit fee and
forget about wasting taxpayer money writing new legislation. The fee
will be passed along to the customer no matter who it's collected
from. In fact some companies will find a way to charge the customer $2
a month extra for having to send in the $1!!!

The fees around here range from zero to $100 per year (I think Wiley,
TX has just begun charging this rate). If the fees went up $12 year
across the board, I'm sure it would have very little impact on our
business...much less impact on our business than going to Verified
Response.

Bossman

 

[Norm Mugford]

My general consensus is that the false alarms should be viewed the
same way as the speed limit requirement. If you violate the speed limit
you get fined. If you violate/misuse the limits put on false alarms, pay the
fine.

Mr. Bass you are wrong again to say that I am a "salesman who also
serves on the ECLB. I own and operate a Florida Certified licensed alarm and
24 hour monitoring station, and comply with the laws of the state of
Florida.
And am also one of the Certified Alarm Contractor I representatives on the
ECLB.

Remember, that's one of the licenses you're supposed to have to operate
in the State of Florida. The License number is required to be on your
proposals, leases, business cards, contracts and oh yes....your web-site.
Which I still do not see one on your website or your contracts.
Shall we start this again Mr. Bass?

Norm

 

[Norm Mugford]

Thanks for your comments Jack.

My personal feelings about "taxing" everyone, on a monthly basis is wrong.
80% of my customers never have a dispatch, why should they pay?
I believe the way to go about it is to enforce false alarms the same way
the States enforce speed limits. If you pass the false alarm limit, pay the
fine.
Most communities have a 3 strikes policy. I think that is fair. I also
believe
that requiring a verification call will cut dispatches by 30%.
In the insurance industry, if you have too many claims, your rate is
adjusted
dramatically upward. Maybe the local law enforcement should keep
records of false alarms at each address and the ones that have alot
of dispatches should pay a premium. If they switch monitoing companies,
the data should be made available to the new company before rates
are quoted.

Norm

 

[Norm Mugford]

Thanks for your comments Mr. Campbell, I agree with you. We are already
overwhelmed with laws & rules. Keep it simple. If you generate a false
alarm...pay for it, if it's excessive.

A new bill in front of the 107th congress is proposing Central Station
guidelines (UL) so that the central stations do not have to apply to each
state
for licensure. How on earth will that help the false alarm problem?
The only thing that will do is make it harder to control the central
station.

Most of the false alarms are from UL central stations that monitor non
UL accounts, such as residential systems. And now the NFPA is
looking at standards for residential burg systems. Imagine every
residential burg system installed to UL requirements!
The only entity that will benefit is UL.

Norm

 

[dep_blueman]

IMO, if this is really a 'fee' offset the cost of sending units out to
respond to false alarms then the people generating the false alarms
should pay on a per dispatch basis.

We have had two false alarms that resulted in a dispatch in the past 9
years (one was our fault and one was the alarm equiptment's fault;
both were fire alarms) and I would have been more than glad to pay
$100 or $200 or whatever for their time. In fact, I even called the
station the next day and offered to pay.

I would much rather have the police and fire respond as if there was a
real problem each time and pay if I messed up than have a bunch of
false alarms where people think "Oh well, I pay the monthly fee for
that anyway. See you next time."

-D

 

[Jackcsg]

Verification in my Central Station has cut false alarms 100%. But I also do
not monitor any residential clients. Your right though, it should be just
like a speeding ticket. I think more needs to be done from the Central
Station side of things as well. Better tracking and accountability. I'm sick
of reading statistics from Municipalities, and not alarm companies, or for
that matter at all. It's the industry's problem...every portion of it.
Accountability. People who are not causing false alarms shouldn't have to be
accountable to those who are.

Jack

 

[Aegis]

I think its probably a sign of things to come if Police Depts don't stop
responding altogether and I think this sort of charge is a separate issue from
false alarms, the municipalities see alarm companies, in essence, selling
Police response with the cost of providing the response falling on the local
Police Dept, they probably feel they are entitled to a slice of the pie.

Doug L

I'd love to see the news report on the one alarm that the police didn't
respond to and the little old lady was raped and killed... Always fun to see
a police chief get fired. (sarcasm for those of you who need me to point
that out)

 

[Jackcsg]

He's only got a 98% chance your wrong.

Jack

issue

I'd love to see the news report on the one alarm that the police didn't
respond to and the little old lady was raped and killed... Always fun to see
a police chief get fired. (sarcasm for those of you who need me to point
that out)

 

[Mark Leuck]

What's the consensus of the professionals in this group about
Georgia House Bill 1139 authored by Representative Childers introduced
on January 15, 2004.

The bill reads "(b)Each person or company which services, maintains,
operates,
or leases as lessor any burglary alarm system, fire alarm system, or other
electronic
security system shall, in addition to any other licensing fee, pay to the
county or
municipal corporation in which such system is installed a fee of $1.00 per
month for each such system to offset the cost to such political subdivision
caused
by false alarms sounded by such systems".

Norm Mugford
Board Member - Florida Electrical Contractors Licensing Board.
[email protected]

The biggest problem is today it's $1.00, tommorrow it'll be $5.00 etc. Once
the foot is in the door......

 

[Norm Mugford]

Not only will it probably go up to $5.00, but it will also spread to $1.00
for each
water heater, each air conditioner, each satellite dish, etc. and what about
"On Star"

Jackcsg is right...affirmative action on everyone's part.

Just about every community is concerned about false alarms.
We need to make changes now or pay the piper.

The police wants us to get false alarms under control. Or they will have
laws passed to force the issue.

Thanks for your input Mark

Norm

 

[sockpupet]

We needed to make changes 20 years ago. The piper is on your doorstep and
now it's too late.

What do you mean 'We'...? you're not even in the industry because they won't
let criminals get a license in FL

It's way beyond that point. You've already allowed the situation to get so
out of hand that laws are being passed all over the country to deal with
false alarms.

Oh so now it's 'you'. I see you make my point for me.

 

[Mark Leuck]

But, water heaters don't call for police response, air conditioners are not
broken 95% of the time, and satellite dishes aren't sold with the understanding
that the police will come whenever the signal isn't at it's strongest. As Jack
said, let's not dillute our issue, by bringing up "could be's".

We should "dillute" it because it WILL happen because that is the way
government likes to work.

 

[Jackcsg]

The important thing is, if you have come to except it...are you ready for
it?
The most meaningful thing that was ever told to me in this industry; "Poor
planning on your part, does not constitute an emergency on mine" - AWG
(initials)

Jack