City institutes false alarm fee for medical alarms

From press release

Effective Thursday, Feb. 11, the City of Rockford Fire Department will start to charge for false medical alarms. With this change, false medical alarms will be treated the same as current false burglar and fire alarms and will be fined in accordance with a sliding fee schedule beginning with the transmission of the fifth false alarm.

The need to charge for false medical alarms is due to the rapid rise in the number of false medical alarm calls requiring a response from either the Fire Department, Police Department, or both. City officials began working directly with those sites which had a high number of false medical alarms last fall, but were unable to see a decrease in unnecessary calls. Because of the expense and commitment of resources these calls drew from the city, officials then opted to include medical alarms in the existing false alarm ordinance.

The false alarm fee will be billed to the primary subscriber of the medical alarm service. Each subscription address will be allowed a total of four false alarms of any type: police, fire and medical, and then will be billed in accordance with the following fee schedule:

Fifth-eighth false alarm—$100 per false alarm

Ninth-10th false alarm—$200 per false alarm

More than 10 false alarms—$300 per false alarm

In addition, all subscribers must obtain an alarm permit through the City of Rockford Finance Department. The fine for not having a valid permit is $300.