BROOKSVILLE- about two weeks ago Sheriff Nienhuis filed a lawsuit against the county commission because he feels that the commission did not follow the state law in denying his budget. In spite of the lawsuit the Sheriff said at a press conference on Monday Oct. 10th, they are “still hitting a brick wall” as far as getting the budget increase.
In addition to the lawsuit the sheriff has sent a petition to the governor to overrule the commission and increase his budget. The first stop for the Sheriff’s petition is the Governor’s Policy and Budget Office. The Policy and Budget Office will review the petition and present its findings to the governor and the cabinet. They will then report to the governor and cabinet with a recommendation and it will be up to them to decide on what action if any to take.
The three main points of his petition were highlighted by the Sheriff. First, it states that the County Commission’s decision was arbitrary and capricious in their decision. Secondly, it states that the county saw an increase in taxes paid of $2.2 million, so they could have funded his budget request without raising taxes. Third, despite that increase the county was presented an option to fully fund the Sheriff’s budget using money generated by the jail for holding federal prisoners. Currently, the money is in a fund to provide improvements or potentially build a new jail.
During the budget hearing the commission decided to cut $1.7 million from the Sheriff’s Office budget. Sheriff Nienhuis views this cut to his budget as arbitrary and capricious. The budget increase was intended to provide for an additional detective to monitor sexual predators, a mental health worker for the jail, and an additional k9 officer. The Sheriff’s Office feels that they need the additional detective to monitor sexual predators, since a few years ago there were 285 sexual predators and now there are over 400 in the county. The additional K9 officer would be added to the four current K9 officers that they have. The sheriff stated that other departments in the area have more K9 officers per capita.
Sheriff Nienhuis mentioned that several recent appeals have been successful. He said that Alachua county sheriff Sadie Darnell successfully appealed her budget last year and had money for school resource deputies added back to the budget. He also mentioned that Liberty county’s Sheriff Nick Finch appealed to the cabinet and said money was awarded to the sheriff there too.