KCMO alarm permit renewal fee notices cause worry

We have been getting several calls per day from customers who have received a letter from the Kansas City Missouri False Alarm Reduction Program. The letter says they need to send $20 to renew their alarm permit to PO Box 744924 Los Angeles, CA 90074-4924. This has struck a few people as suspicious. Why send money to California for your KCMO permit? I imagine that some people have thrown that letter away because they think it is a scam. Unfortunately there are some consequences they might not expect if they ignore it.

I looked into it further. It is not a scam. Central Square Technologies (a.k.a. Cry Wolf Services) has been contracted by the Missouri Board of Police Commissioners to handle alarm permits for the city of Kansas City, MO. That is not unusual for a city this size. Many smaller communities in the area have signed up with them as well.

The important thing to know is— a permit is required if you want the police to respond to your KCMO security alarm. There is a renewal fee for the alarm permit now, when there was not one being charged before (but it is spelled out in the alarm ordinance that there was supposed to be one. When the PD was handling it themselves, they seemed to focus on the fines for people who had excessive false alarms). This new renewal fee is being applied to everyone with an active alarm permit.

SO— don’t throw the letter away. If you want the police to respond when the monitoring station calls them about your alarm being tripped, send the renewal payment to them. If you have other options for response, like a neighborhood security patrol, you could consider switching the dispatch call to them. Just know that if you do not pay the renewal fee and you do have an alarm dispatch, you may face a fine of $100 instead.

For more information about the permit or any issues you may have with the permit process contact (833) 739-0786 or KansasMO@alarm-billing.com The Ordinance (970277) can be found HERE, along with FAQs and such. At the time of this blog post, there was not a list of fees on the FAQ or in the ordinance itself. I hope there will be an update and a little more transparency about those.