New Haven Independent

“We had an issue with the software we use to collect the fines,” said city spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga Monday. The software “blew up,” she said. The problem has been going on for three years; each year, the expected revenue fails to materialize.

The revenue loss is one of several reflected in January’s recession-plagued monthly budget report. The losses contributed to a $3.2 million FY08-09 budget gap, which the city aims to close through a spending freeze and, in small part, through a recent round of layoffs.

The uncollected fines stem back over three years ago. The most recent obstacle occurred in Nov. 2007, when an IT staffer who worked on the system moved on to another job.

“We had a system designed in-house by someone who left and [we] couldn’t make it work,” wrote Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts in an email. “We’ve been planning on getting it operational since, but haven’t been able to for various reasons. Consequently, we haven’t taken in any revenue.”

The city introduced the false alarm fines in 2004 as a way to encourage people to better maintain their security systems. Alarm owners are penalized when they fail to correct a flaw after three false alarms. The fines are as follows: no charge for the first three false alarms, $45 for the fourth, and $75 for each subsequent false alarm.

In November 2007, the city made a failed attempt to increase those fines.At the time, police spokesman Officer Joe Avery said that 97 percent of the alarm calls police responded to were false. The pattern was sapping police resources, he said.

“Our man hours are better spent than chasing ghosts,” Avery said.

At that 2007 hearing, West River Alderman Yusuf Shah wanted to ensure that the new fines would actually be imposed, as he’d encountered inconsistency with police billing before. Police officials assured him that the police department was updating its computing system so that reliable billing would not be a problem.

The proposed legislation never got passed. The penalties remain as they were set in 2004. So far, the revenue has essentially failed to materialize.

The new fines brought in $4,372 in FY05-06. In FY06-07, the city budgeted for $35,000 but only took in $31. In FY07-08, the city again budgeted for $35,000, but made zero dollars.

Undeterred, the city budgeted for another $35,000 from these fines in FY08-09. The latest budget report showed those hopes fall flat: The city does not expect to recoup any revenue from that fund.

In planning for next year, the city appears to have learned a lesson: The mayor’s proposed FY09-10 budget assumes zero dollars in false alarm fines.

Meanwhile, Smuts said his staff is addressing the problem.

“Basically: the system broke, we had other priorities, and now we’re fixing it,” he wrote.

“We now have staff in place and IT has redesigned our system, and we should be able to move forward.” He said the city plans to launch new software, and introduce new legislation to the Board of Aldermen amending the burglary alarm ordinance, in April or May.

“The past is likely past,” said Smuts, “but if we are successful in getting it up and running, we’ll do better in the future.”

No changes to the ordinance would happen without a public hearing, he noted.

“We expect to do a better job of tracking the people who are responsible for multiple false alarms,” he said. “The goal is to reduce the number of false alarms, so that they’re not wasting police resources by sending us on wild goose chases.”