Broward Sheriff's Billion Dollar Budget Is Dead On Arrival

If you pay property taxes in Broward County, more than half of every dollar you pay already goes to one place: the Broward Sheriff's Office.

No other county agency comes close to spending this much public money, and no other agency comes close to the reach of BSO, with its nearly 6,000 employees.

But Sheriff Gregory Tony says 54 cents of every property tax dollar still isn't enough and will need hundreds of millions more over the next year to make up for decades of short-sighted spending and a lack of strategic planning.

Florida's sheriffs are independently elected by voters, but county commissioners, who collect taxes, decide how much money they receive — a tricky arrangement that has drawn widespread criticism over the years . This often becomes highly political, but it shouldn't be.

A very big result

An army of BSO top brass and uniformed deputies joined Tony as he made his case Tuesday for a 48 percent budget increase. Its final request was for $1.53 billion.

If that figure were approved — and it won't be — the first billion-dollar budget in the sheriff's office's history would require a 33 percent increase in county property taxes next year.

This is absolutely not a starter, but Tony dove forward. He called for a massive spending increase to address a long list of needs: a shortage of underpaid detention officers, a mold-infested BSO substation, a county-owned warehouse to store evidence, new cars patrol, an emergency call center, three new replacements. helicopters and improvements to the sheriff's headquarters in Fort Lauderdale.

“We haven't had the opportunity to introduce all of our deficiencies into this county,” Tony told the commission. “These are the real needs we have for this organization, to do our work effectively. We did our job really well without having all the resources.

If you think most of the taxes you pay are spent catching criminals, think again. Nearly half of Tony's annual budget is spent on detention alone – the care and custody of inmates – and mental health costs for many of them are skyrocketing.

Too many unfilled jobs

The starting salary for a BSO detention deputy is $54,675, but Tony said he can't keep it because other counties pay much more. Nearly 20 percent of Broward's detention deputy positions are vacant. He said Palm Beach County is paying $69,768 to start and jail deputies will earn 16 percent more over the next three years.

“This divide is only going to get deeper,” Tony warned the commissioners.

Dozens of green-clad sheriff's deputies and county firefighters in yellow T-shirts, also part of the BSO, crowded the narrow hallways of the county government center.

It was a show of unity from an agency Tony calls “the big green machine.” They were one when Tony entered the courtroom, fashionably late.

But the commissioners – some of them wearing Panthers jerseys in anticipation of Game 5 – were not impressed.

Too much too soon

Simply put, Tony is asking for way too much money, too quickly.

Asking for decades of catch-up money in one year, Commissioner Steve Geller called Tony's grandiose spending plan “not serious.”

If approved, it would eat up an astonishing 93 percent of the county's tax-supported general fund, leading to massive cuts elsewhere, according to the county budget director.

A telling detail has emerged that seems to help Tony's case. From 2007 to this year, when inflation and population growth are included, the sheriff's office budget in real terms decreased by 7.4 percent. But the budgets of other departmental agencies decreased in real terms over the same period by 19.4%.

A big part of Tony's problem is that several commissioners have just been re-elected unopposed, so Tony can't use the politics of lobbying voters to get them to give him more money.

Commissioners Steve Geller, Hazelle Rogers and Michael Udine won new four-year terms without breaking a sweat because no one challenged them. Mayor Nan Rich is the only incumbent facing opposition.

In front of a crowd full of BSO officials, Commissioner Lamar Fisher got assurances from Tony that the sheriff would not publicly blame the commissioners for not giving him all the money he needed.

“I'll give you my word here,” Tony said. “I’m not going to point the finger at you.”

Everyone wants the best public safety possible. But in Broward, the best would cost too much.

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