| TO: | Honorable Joe Driver, Chair, House Committee on Law Enforcement |
| FROM: | John S. O'Brien, Director, Legislative Budget Board |
| IN RE: | HB1906 by West, George "Buddy" (Relating to the authority of a municipality to regulate certain burglar alarm systems.), As Introduced |
The bill would amend the Local Government Code to authorize a municipality to impose a fee of $100 a year for a commercial location that obtains a burglar alarm system permit. Under current statute, no permit fee is listed for a commercial location.
Under the provisions of the bill, if a municipality wants to adopt an ordinance or a policy providing that the municipal law enforcement personnel will not respond to any alarm signal, the municipality would have to hold an election to submit the ordinance or policy to the voters. Under current statute, only notification efforts and a public hearing are required prior to adopting such an ordinance.
A municipality would realize a revenue gain from imposing a $100 annual permit fee on alarm systems at commercial locations. The amount of revenue generated would vary by municipality, depending on the number of commercial permits issued, but the revenue gain would not likely be significant.
A municipality that seeks to adopt an ordinance or policy that would provide that law enforcement personnel are not required to respond to an alarm signal would incur election costs. Based on a sampling of municipalities and special districts self-reporting data for calendar year 2006 and a sampling of counties self-reporting data for calendar year 2005 to the Secretary of State’s Office, the average cost incurred by a local government entity for conducting an election would range from $0.70 to $1.25 per registered voter. The total election costs would vary by local government entity depending on the number of voters registered in each.
| Source Agencies: |
| LBB Staff: | JOB, ES, DB
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