§ 1871. Department of public safety; commissioner

(a) The department of public safety, created by 3 V.S.A. §  212, shall include a commissioner of public safety.

(b) The head of the department shall be a commissioner of public safety, who shall be a citizen of the United States and shall be selected on the basis of training, experience and qualifications. The commissioner shall be appointed by the governor, with the advice and consent of the senate, for a term of six years.

(c) The commissioner of public safety may contract for security and related traffic control, and receive reimbursement for reasonable costs which shall include costs associated with providing personnel, benefits, equipment, vehicles, insurances and related expenses. These reimbursements shall be credited to a special fund established pursuant to 32 V.S.A. chapter 7, subchapter 5, and be available to offset costs of providing those services.

(d) The commissioner of public safety shall collect fees for the termination of alarms at state police facilities and for response to false alarms.

(e) Termination Fees:

(1) The termination fee for a single dedicated circuit alarm at a state police facility will be $250.00 per user per year.

(2) An alarm company or monitoring service that is authorized to install a multi-unit alarm panel at a state police facility will be assessed a fee of $25.00 per alarm with a minimum fee of $250.00 per panel per year.

(3) An individual or business who programs a tape dialer or other automatic notification device to transmit a voice message to a state police facility, informing the police of a burglary or other emergency, must register such dialer with the state police facility and will be assessed a registration fee of $50.00 per year. The fee includes an onsite inspection by a member of the state police.

(4) If state police respond to an alarm and it is found that the alarm was transmitted by an unregistered tape dialer or similar notification device, a registration fee of $50.00 will be assessed subsequent to that response. Unpaid registration fees are considered to be alarms in default and handled in accordance with the provisions of the section on response terminations.

(f) False Alarms:

(1) A false alarm is notification given to the state police by electronic or telephonic means that an emergency situation exists, when an emergency or other circumstance that could be perceived as an emergency does not exist and to which the state police have responded.

(2) Alarm periods shall be based on the calendar year, January 1 through December 31.

(3) The first false alarm in an alarm period shall be at no cost. The second false alarm in the alarm period shall be assessed at $50.00 and each successive false alarm in the same alarm period shall be assessed at $75.00.

(g) Response Terminations:

(1) Alarm fees which have been assessed and not paid for a period of 60 days from the date of the last billing are considered alarms in default and the state police station commander, with the concurrence of the state police troop commander, may notify the alarm holder that the state police will no longer respond to alarms at that location as long as the alarm holder is in default.

(2) When in the opinion of the station commander, with the concurrence with the troop commander, there exists a chronic false alarm problem which the alarm holder appears not to have taken reasonable measures to correct, the station commander may send notification that the state police will no longer respond to alarms at that location until the problem is corrected even if the alarm holder is not in default on fees assessed.

(h) Appeal: An alarm holder may appeal a decision of the station commander to the troop commander.

(i) The commissioner of public safety may enter into contractual arrangements to perform dispatching functions for state, municipal or other emergency services, establishing charges sufficient to recover the costs of dispatching. Dispatch positions which are fully funded under such contracts may be authorized under the provisions of 32 V.S.A. § 5(b).

(j) Charges collected under subsections (e), (f), and (i) of this section shall be credited to the Vermont law telecommunications special fund and shall be available to the department to offset the costs of providing the services. (Amended 1959, No. 329 (Adj. Sess.), § 36, eff. March 1, 1961; 1985, No. 4, eff. March 9, 1985; 1995, No. 178 (Adj. Sess.), § 342, eff. May 22, 1996; 1995, No. 186 (Adj. Sess.), § 8, eff. May 22, 1996; 1999, No. 49, § 161; 1999, No. 66 (Adj. Sess.), § 49, eff. Feb. 8, 2000; 2005, No. 209 (Adj. Sess.), § 30.)