Non-Vital 911 Callers, Drunks to Be Billed

People who make non-emergency telephone calls to the 911 telephone number and drunks taken to the city jail will be billed under a new program adopted unanimously Monday night by the Garden Grove City Council.

The program, believed to be unique in Southern California, is designed to recover some of the costs associated with taking care of drunks and responding to 911 calls that turn out to be non-emergencies.

“This is probably the first time in the United States that these fees would be imposed,” said Garden Grove Police Chief John R. Robertson.

He said approximately 400 people--only 39% of whom are residents of the city--are arrested each year in the city for public intoxication. The annual cost of making the arrests, processing the suspects and monitoring them for the five hours they typically spend in jail is estimated at $120,000.

To help offset that expense, Garden Grove police proposed that those arrested be charged $118 for their stay in the municipal jail.

“The Police department does not feel that the ciTizens of the community should be responsible for the costs associated with the arrest and custodial maintenance of these subjects,” Robertson said.

“Currently, there are no other cities found to be collecting for this service,” according to a police staff report.

That $118 cost to the person arrested is based on a formula that puts a policeman’s time at 99 cents a minute and factors in the time spent in “baby-sitting the individual through the detoxification period,” according to Robertson, as well as the periodic checks that must be made on the suspect.

How much money the city will recover is unknown. In the existing “Intoxicated Drivers Cost Recovery Program,” Garden Grove has recovered monies from 42% of the responsible parties, according to a police report, representing 32% of the cost of handling traffic accidents connected to drunk driving.

“You might think that people arrested for public drunkenness have no resources. But we’ve researched this and found that they match the profile of the drunk driver,” said Robertson. He added that the city has arranged with a private legal firm to help collect the amounts owed.

The cost-recovery program is aimed at raising money without increasing taxes. A similar program for fire inspections and reviews was approved by the Garden Grove council in September.

People misusing the 911 emergency phone line will also be billed by the city for police time. A charge of 99 cents per officer per minute has been established as a fee responsible parties must pay when a non-emergency call is made on the 911 line.

In 1988, the department received 1,255 non-emergency calls, including children playing with the phone and people accidentally dialing 911 and failing to call back and advise police that there was no emergency. The cost of responding to these calls was set at $41,659.

Not everyone who calls the emergency line will be billed, however.

“It should be noted that the individual who calls on 911 but does not meet the criteria for using the 911 system will be requested to call back on a regular business line. This person will not be charged for misuse unless repeated misuse has been determined,” the report said.

A related proposal to increase fees for a variety of police reports, establishing fees for bingo license renewal and increasing fees for issuing badges to people who administer the games, was referred back to the city staff for further study.