Title
Approval of an Ordinance Related to Alarm Response Fees
Recommended Action
Committee Recommendation:
Not referred to a committee.
City Manager Recommendation:
Move to approve the ordinance related to Alarm Response Fees.
Report
Issue:
Whether to approve an ordinance related to Alarm Response Fees.
Staff Contact:
Chandra Brady, Support Administrator, Police, 360.753.8214
Presenter(s):
None - Consent Calendar Item.
Background and Analysis:
In 2018, the Olympia Police Department (OPD) worked with City staff in Financial Services to evaluate the services provided by our current vendor for alarm services. The City pays $3,760 a month for our vendor to provide monitoring and billing services when OPD responds to false home alarms in the community. City staff have been dealing with a large number of errors by the current vendor, and Olympia citizens report difficulty in getting through for customer service when they have questions. The current contract needs to be re-negotiated and OPD would like to consider alternate vendors.
In 2019, OPD worked with legal to update the current City ordinance, and the ordinance requires the fees to be listed in code. This updates the OPD fee schedule to include alarm fees but does not change or increase any of the fees. This satisfies the requirement that allows the Department to move forward with a false alarm vendor contract.
Neighborhood/Community Interests (if known):
Olympia citizens deserve top quality customer service and should not have to take time to address errors in false alarm billing.
Options:
1. Approve the ordinance related to alarm response fees - Department can negotiate a contract with a vendor for false alarms.
2. Modify the ordinance related to alarm response fees - Continue operating as-is until modification can be done and item can be returned to council for decision.
3. Do not approve the ordinance - Continue working with current vendor, out of compliance with code requiring alarm fees be ...
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