Florida
Florida was the third state to enter the project. The first Chief’s meeting was held in September of 1997. In October, unlike the other states the coordinator was chosen by and with the mutual consent of Chief Mike Brasfield and the Alarm Association of Florida.
Liaisons for the California Model State Program included:
While there are many observations that will be included in this final report these three issues seemed to stand out as challenges for Florida. As we seek to take our findings nation-wide these areas will have to be addressed and efforts will have to be made to improve upon them.
1. First and foremost is the issue of ordinance adoption:
It was commonly believed at the onset of the Model States Program that ordinance adoption would be forthcoming. This is still true; it’s just that the process is much longer than we anticipated. Based on the Florida experience, a period of 18 months from draft to passage would be a safe timeline for ordinance adoption. Motivated agencies can, and have, completed the process in a much shorter time, but generally speaking we should allow for 18 months.
2. Most agencies have no method by which to accurately track false dispatches or the associated data required to implement a false dispatch reduction effort.
From small to large, almost every agency we came in contact with in Florida had no method to track false dispatches, cancellations, alarm registrations, or other pertinent data. In fact, it is surprising how many agencies only knew how many alarm calls were dispatched, but had no other data. There are even a few agencies that have to track this information manually.
There is a definite need for a tracking process and hopefully FAAP will fill this
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