Cleveland already has laws on the books establishing fines to address the high number of false alarms each year and plans to hire debt collectors to settle bills.
According to the Division of Police, there are 25,000 security alarm calls to law enforcement each year, about 98 percent of those turn out to be false alarms.
On Monday, city council approved a contract for collections on false alarms.
Cleveland Finance Director Sharon Dumas said most of the false alarms are at houses but collections will start at businesses only.
“And we will do a very careful roll out that includes education, as we do when we do anything that’s new, but at some point we will have to have some conversation around residential also," said Dumas.
According to current city law, every owner of an alarm system is supposed to register with the city and pay a $25 fee. The city considered, and dropped, legislation a few times in recent years ago that would have required the alarm company to pay for the registration, instead of the user.
More than two false alarms at any location in a single year results in a $130 fine, according to current law.
