Sheriff Al Nienhuis recently appealed to the State of Florida Administration Commission on the matter of the funding of his FY 2017 budget. Sheriff Nienhuis requested a $1.7 million budget increase to pay 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.
In their reply to the Sheriff’s appeal to receive the $1.7 million, the county states, “The Sheriff explicitly stated in his budget request letter that he planned to use the additional $1.7 million to pay for new, wholly discretionary spending and the board would have had to impose a property tax increase in order to fund the Sheriff’s request.”
In their response, the county states that the Administration Commission must decide if the Board’s unanimous vote not to impose a property tax to fund the Sheriff’s budget for new, wholly discretionary funding impaired his ability to fulfill his constitutional or statutory obligations. Additionally they must determine if the board acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it voted not to impose the tax increase to fund the Sheriff’s additional $1.7 million request.
In the statement of the case and the facts portion of their reply, the county illustrated the approved budgetary increases of 3.26%, 3.42% and 3.81% for fiscal years 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively.
The county stated that in FY 2016, the Sheriff did not spend the funds allocated to him in entirety, returning $924,250.00.
The county stated that the budget increase requested by the Sheriff did not mention anything regarding a collective bargaining agreement that compelled him to give employees pay raises.
The county explained that the county’s overall increase in property values resulted in an additional $1,425,198.00 in property tax revenue for the General Fund. Considering increases in state sales tax distributions and revenue sharing, the total amount of increased revenue in FY 2017 would be $2,449,500.00.
Despite the increase, the county maintains that the General Fund still faced a deficit of $10,417,694.00 (before cuts).
Because there were many charges against the general fund that the county has no control over such as the 19.5% increase in employee health insurance rates, they had to make drastic cuts to “departments and programs that were under the auspices of the board.”
The county was able to fully fund the general funds proposed expenditures for 2017 at the prior year’s millage of 6.9912, minus the Sheriff’s $1.7 million budget increase. They calculated that it would have required a .2819 mills increase.
The county repeats that during the first and second budget hearing that the Sheriff did not “endorse the idea of increasing the millage to fund his office’s budget request, nor mentioned that a collective bargaining agreement required him to grant raises.”
Legally the county argues that the Sheriff failed to show impairment to his constitutional or statutory duties due to the county not granting him the increase. The county writes, “The Sheriff does not even attempt to argue that he cannot fulfill his above-listed duties without receiving a budget increase. The Sheriff cannot make that argument; he performed all of his duties last year for $924,250.00 less than the Board had appropriated to him last year.”
The county also states that they would be remiss if they did not address the Sheriff’s allegation that the Board refused to fund the collectively-bargained employee raises. They again explained that the Sheriff failed to mention the collective bargaining agreements at budget meetings. The county added that the Sheriff could have funded 3% raises in FY 2016 with the $924,250.00 returned to the county.
The county states that the Sheriff also failed to show that the county’s actions of not raising his budget was arbitrary or capricious. The county explains that the board’s decision to reject the Sheriff’s percentage based budget proposal and considered funding the Sheriff’s Office through an MSTU in the past should not have any relevance to determining whether or not the County adequately funded the Sheriff’s Office for FY 2017.
The County pointed out several errors made by the Sheriff in his arguments stating that the county did not treat his office fairly in comparison to how they chose to fund other departments.
The county explained that they have no control over funding for the Tax Collector and Property Appraiser budgets. The Sheriff described the purchase of the former Tampa Bay Times Building for $4.15 million as wasteful spending. The county states that the money came out of the enterprise fund which is generated by Utility department fees. This fund cannot be used to fund the Sheriff’s Office. The county also writes, “Finally (and perhaps most importantly), the Board has the authority, as the County’s legislative body, to choose how it wants to spend its funds.” Bitingly, the county continues,”If the Sheriff believes that he could spend the County’s money better, he could have run for a seat on the County Commission.”
The county refuted the argument that they could have funded the Sheriff’s $1.7 million budget increase without raising the millage by using the additional revenue the General Fund received from growth of the local economy. The county maintains that the $2,449,500.00 in additional ad valorem tax revenue, state revenue sharing and state sales tax remittance was “completely subsumed by costs over which the County has no control.”
Lastly, the county explained that the following community based programs: the Blueberry Festival, the Hernando County Fair, the Brooksville Vision Foundation and the Chinsegut Hill historical site received funding at the expense of the “General Fund’s sole remaining capital project, a lake restoration.” The Board was going to initially cut funding to these programs in order to balance the tentative budget, but community representatives managed to convince the board to restore the funding. The county explains, “Despite not asking for those funds during or after the hearing, the Sheriff now argues that the Board’s decision to fund those projects instead of granting the funds to his office, as ‘arbitrary and capricious’ ”
A discussion with the Sheriff regarding the HCSO budget matter set for October 11th, was rescheduled for October 25th. The discussion was originally planned prior to the appeal filed by Sheriff Nienhuis.
At the commission meeting on October 25th, Sheriff Nienhuis said, “I’m here because you said you wanted to see me.”
Neither the Board nor the Sheriff had anything to discuss about the Sheriff’s budget due to the pending appeal.