Pasco Sheriff’s Budget Request Goes Unanswered

Pasco County Sheriff Bob White had hoped to work out a dispute with commissioners in advance of a Feb. 14 hearing in Tallahassee regarding his budget appeal.

That hope was dashed during today’s Pasco County Commission meeting.

While commission chairwoman Ann Hildebrand did bring up White's offer letter during the Feb. 8 meeting, the board did not act on it.

“Commissioner Hildebrand brought it up,” wrote Commissioner Pat Mulieri in an e-mail following the meeting. “The board did not move to accept his offer.”

At issue is a sheriff’s office request for a $3.9 million budget increase to add additional staff members, including 28 deputies. In a Feb. 7 letter, White reduced his request to $3 million to cover mainly the hiring of new deputies and related expenses.

 The sheriff’s office and commission are scheduled to appear before a state advisory panel Feb. 14 to discuss the dispute. That panel would make a recommendation to the Florida Cabinet when it meets March 9.

“Next week we are scheduled to appear in Tallahassee to have a hearing regarding the Pasco Sheriff’s Office budget,” White wrote in the Feb. 7 letter to Hildebrand. “Before that happened I wanted to take one final opportunity for us to have some sort of meeting of the minds on this issue.”

The sheriff’s office has 1.2 deputies per 1,000 residents, according to Kevin Doll, spokesman. The national average is between 2.2 and 2.5 deputies per thousand.

White had not issued a statement on the outcome of the commission meeting as of 4:30 p.m. Feb. 8, Doll said.

Mulieri said she asked about a plan that would look at adding 32 deputies over the next four years at a rate of eight a year. That suggestion wasn’t acted on either.

“This was just a thought,” she wrote. “Only the sheriff knows what he needs.”