NATCHEZ — Homeowners who set off their home security systems but don’t let authorities know it was a false alarm could soon face fines.

The Adams County Board of Supervisors adopted last week an ordinance that would levy a fine against homeowners the third time the Adams County Sheriff’s Office or the Natchez Police Department has to respond to a false alarm on their property.

The ordinance states that if the ACSO has to respond to three false alarms on the same site within a year, the owner of the site will be fined $10. Four alarms within the same time period will draw a fine of $15 and five or more false alarms will result in a $25 fine for every response. Alarm companies that fail to inform law enforcement authorities of canceled alarms are subject to a fine of up to $100.

The ordinance was adopted after a public hearing Feb. 20, at which no members of the public were in attendance.

“People’s alarms go off and they don’t bother to pick up the phone and tell us until we get out there, or their alarms are malfunctioning and they aren’t getting anything done,” Sheriff Chuck Mayfield said. “The alarm companies are getting paid and we are doing all the work.”

Supervisor Calvin Butler said the ordinance actually protects the residents of the county by ensuring that the sheriff’s office is not constantly respond to calls that turn out to be nothing.

Supervisor Angela Hutchins said that the ordinance was put into place in the hopes that it would prevent having deputies responding late to an emergency call because they were across the county responding to a false alarm, a sentiment Board President Darryl Grennell echoed.

“When a deputy has to go out into rural Adams County to respond to a false alarm, it reduces the response time for that same deputy to go to another part of Adams County when there is some type of emergency event,” Grennell said. “A lot of time is wasted, along with fuel, going to the site of a false alarm.”

The sheriff’s office has to respond to alarms, Supervisor Mike Lazarus said.

“We have people who won’t fix (a broken alarm) no matter what,” Lazarus said. “As long as the sheriff keeps on going out there for free they aren’t going to do anything about it.”

The ordinance wasn’t imposed to hurt residents, Butler said.

“The reason for the imposed fee is to make sure they go ahead and take it seriously and take care of that (malfunctioning alarm),” he said.

Supervisor David Carter was quick to emphasize that the goal of the fine was not to raise money, and said the sheriff’s office will still work with residents when responding to alarms.

“You’re not going to be charged if the weather sets it off, or if it goes off and you disarm it,” Carter said.