Missouri city the latest to outsource false alarm services

The trend of municipalities outsourcing false alarm collection services continues, and as in past instances, the most recent agreement involves Irving, Texas-based PMAM, a global IT firm with four U.S. offices and an office in Mumbai. Their slogan is “Around the World, Around the Clock,” so you can see why their false alarm tracking and billing services might appeal to cities hoping to nip the problem in the bud.

According to an article from KSMU (Ozarks Public Radio) in Springfield, Mo., the police department in that city is the latest to do away with its in-house handling of false alarms, opting to transfer those duties to PMAM. Springfield Police Department dispatchers receive as many as 400 false alarm calls a month, the article noted.

Like any outsourcing move, the new arrangement saves resources, authorities say. In addition to being a drag on budgets, false alarms also stretch law enforcement in potentially harmful ways, sometimes preventing or delaying response to critical calls.

The advantage of outsourcing false alarm services to a company like PMAM is that, ideally, the IT giant has the capabilities to identify a false alarm, home in on the cause (an installation flaw or dated system is often the culprit), and then teach people how to avert future false dispatches, and the fines that eventually accompany them.

According to the article, the Springfield Police Department has received roughly 2,100 false alarm calls thus far in 2013. The city's ordinance levies a civil penalty fee, between $15 and $50, for those who have at least four false alarms. The charges escalate with each additional violation, according to the article.

False alarms are both a fiscal and logistical drain on towns and cities. But some of the things that might mitigate false dispatches, including system upgrades and more regular maintenance, are not always at the forefront of many customers' minds.

It seems that until there's more public awareness of the problem, and more measured steps to cripple the problem at its roots, municipal bodies are going to continue seeking out IT behemoths like PMAM for false alarm damage control.