MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Memphis police were dispatched to nearly 49,000 false alarm calls in 2014.

The city’s chief administrative officer says that’s far too many and he’s working to reduce the that number.

Delois Brown who owns a number of rental properties across Memphis has an alarm system at all of her properties. Sometimes the alarm goes off even when no one is breaking in.

“Sometimes if there’s strange movement or if there’s a large truck that may have shaken, ’cause we have a movement detector in it too, then it might have gone off falsely,” she said.

When something like this happens, Brown gets the call before police are called out.

This isn’t always the case for everyone else.

CAO George Little says officers get called out to the same locations over and over, only to find out it’s a false alarm.

“We want to minimize the amount of false alarms so we can better use our police resources when fighting real crime,” Little said.

Little says right now there’s an ordinance that calls for a $25 fine for each false alarm, but the fee is only required if this happens at least four times.

Some say it may be time to consider tougher penalties.

“It would mean that perhaps we would be looking at verification through the alarm company before the police cars roll, particularly on frequent fliers. Perhaps raising the fees,” he said.

Everyone wasn’t penalized last year when the false alarms went off if there was reason to believe the alarm went off due to a weather-related incident or something else.

Little says this is an issue the city can’t ignore.

Director Toney Armstrong wasn’t available for comment Friday.

Little met with Armstrong Thursday to discuss these issues, which will go before city council next month.