Title
An Ordinance amending Chapter 22, Section 77 of the Code of Ordinances for the City of Lee's Summit, Missouri, to change the requirement for alarm system registrations to a one-time registration and remove the registration renewal requirement. (F&BC 10/3/22)
Body
Issue/Request:
The City Council adopted Section 22-77 of the Code of Ordinances in 1988 establishing a requirement for registration of alarm systems and establishing a fee for that registration. The registration fee for each alarm system has been $25 since inception. The required annual renewal fee has been $10 since inception. The accompanying ordinance to amend the Schedule of Fees proposes to make the original alarm system registration fee $50. The annual renewal process and $10 fee would be eliminated.
Key Issues:
The alarm application and renewal process is managed by the Police Department with assistance from the Finance Department. For over 25 years the application fee has remained at $25 and the annual renewal fee at $10. The process includes a great deal of staff hours both from the Police Department and the Finance Department.
Our current registered residential and commercial alarm customers number approximately 5700. Much of the time devoted to the process is with the renewal effort. The Police and Finance Departments have been researching ways to make the alarm registration process more efficient while maintaining a quality level of customer service. There has been a drastic decline in recent years in the return of the renewal requests and payments as seen below:
2019 - 5199 sent; 4375 paid (84% return)
2020 - 5523 sent; 4110 paid (74% return)
2021 - 5745 sent; 3265 paid (57% return)
The current renewal process requires a large mass mailing to registered system owners. The steps taken to produce this mailing and to process the resulting payments require about $6,000 of staff time each year, and an additional $3,700 in postage and envelopes for a total estimated cost of a...
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