Homewood council raises incident report price to $15
Homewood incident reports, which have cost $5 for more than a decade, went up to $15 effective Tuesday.
Police Chief Burke Swearingen asked the City Council last week to consider increasing the cost of incident reports to $10.
The increase will help cover the costs of handling the reports and of software to make the reports available online, he said.
"We want to enter into a contract with a software company to make accident reports available on the Internet," Swearingen told the council.
"Once the software is in place, accident reports will be available on the Internet 24-7. It costs us about $2.50 to produce the paper reports."
It's more of a nuisance to police station employees, council members agreed. "Let's make it $15," said council President Ginger Busby. Another council member yelled an offer of $12.50, but the group agreed to stick with $15.
Swearingen didn't argue.
"Guidelines of the Web-based information will be regulated if the council approves the request," Swearingen said after the meeting.
The city expects revenue from reports to increase from $25,000 to $60,000 for the remainder of this fiscal year.
Here's how Homewood compares to other cities' price for police report copies:
$15: Homewood.
$6: Hueytown.
$5: Bessemer, Birmingham, Hoover, Mountain Brook, Tarrant, Trussville.
$3: Pleasant Grove, Vestavia Hills.
E-mail: kbryan@bhamnews.com
© 2006 The Birmingham News