Of the 107,870 alarms the Nassau county police department received in 2006, 99.4% turned out to be false alarms. These false alarms come at a steep price to taxpayers, costing the county $6 million in police salaries and expenses.

The Nassau county police department submitted a bill that would increase fines for false alarms. It also encourages homeowners and businesses to obtain permits for their premises by imposing even steeper fines for not having a permit. Suozzi and Lawrence stressed that the Nassau county police department will respond to all burglar alarm calls, and that there will be no so-called "no-response list"

"This very important bill will better protect the public safety, increase police department efficiency and stop wasting taxpayer money," says Suozzi "We simply cannot continue to waste our police department's resources, and put officers at risk, by having them rush out to more than 100,000 false alarms every year"

"We need to find a way to reduce the number of false burglar alarms," says commissioner James H. Lawrence "This proposal would go a long way toward accomplishing that goal while not compromising public safety"