Sheriff Al Nienhuis presented his case to the BOCC for the $770,000 net increase to his budget at the first budget hearing on September 3rd. No increase for the Sheriff can come from property taxes, as Commissioners agreed to not raise the millage rate this year. At the end of each fiscal year, the Sheriff’s Office returns a certain amount of excess fees and fines to the County. The Commission voted 4-1 for Assistant County Administrator Zoettlein to discuss with the Sheriff’s Office the dollar amount that is being returned to county from the Sheriff’s Office for FY 2015. The Commission could allow the Sheriff to keep this dollar amount which is approximately $800,000 (minus 18.5% going to reserves) to provide for his additional funding needs for FY2016.
The providing of fees and fines collected back to the Sheriff’s department could be considered unseemly, since it apparently ties the Sheriff Department’s budget to the fines and fees the Sheriff Department collects. The Sheriff’s levying of fines and fees is intended to discourage dangerous behavior not to raise revenue.
Sheriff Nienhuis began his 40 minute presentation by pointing to the responsibilities of several agencies absorbed by the Sheriff’s Office starting in 2007. They took over dispatching in 2007/2008, in 2009 they absorbed emergency management, the detention center, and animal services offices.
Sheriff Nienhuis highlighted 47 positions eliminated between 2009 and 2013 consisting of 38 Full Time and 9 Part Time. Most were telecommunicators and detention deputies according to the Sheriff. He emphasized that they have filled only 3 or 4 positions since then. Another point that he stressed is that they have reduced over $5.8 million in costs from FY 09 to FY 13.
In going over the duties of all their departments, the Sheriff described areas of concern. He stated that the Vice and Narcotics unit has recently seen increased amounts of heroin coming into the county. He also stated that the crime rate is starting to level off after decreasing for several years. The Sheriff took pride in not allowing the crime rate to go back up as well as achieving higher than the state average clearance rates for solving cases at about 34% vs 26%.
In 2010, the Sheriff’s Office took over operations of the county jail from a private company for $11 million. The private company was spending around $13 million operating the jail. Since the Sheriff’s Office has taken over, the budget has increased 2.5% each year. The FY 2015-2016 budget for the jail is $11,969,628. The Sheriff estimates costs for a private jail operator for FY 2015-16 to be around $15 million. In addition to budget decreases, the sheriff has been able to increase revenues for the county jail. The year before the private company collected $30-40,000 to give to the county. The next year after the Sheriff’s office took over, they collected nearly $300,000. FY 2014-2015 revenue is expected to be $430,181. Between 2010 and 2014 the total revenues collected was $1,751,466. The Sheriff also explained that through inmate work programs over 145,000 hours of inmate labor will be used for roadways and facilities valued at $1.4 million at minimum wage plus benefits for 2015.
Sheriff Nienhuis aimed to discredit the following statement, “The Sheriff’s Office is better funded than other areas of Hernando County ‘General Government.’ ” According to statewide statistics, Hernando County is ranked 39th in county government spending out of the 76 counties in Florida. The Sheriff’s department is ranked 45th in Sheriff’s Department funding out of the 76 counties in Florida. “My hope is that this fallacy stops today with this information. That we are funded at a rate less than general county government. I’m not saying we should be funded at [the level] of general county government, but when we ask for meager increases I don’t… think that they are unreasonable,” stated Sheriff Nienhuis. He clarified that our 45th ranking includes animal enforcement officers and countywide dispatching. Many counties do not include them in their costs for law enforcement. Sheriff Nienhuis explained, “Truth is that the Sheriff’s Office consolidation has freed up funds to allow General County Government to be better funded.”
The Sheriff’s FY 2015-2016 budget is $1.57 million which is a $770,000 net increase over FY 2014-2015. Sheriff Nienhuis stated that $672,000 of it is mandatory retirement, $80K is insurance increases and the remainder is salary increases. The Sheriff mentioned that his salary increase is $277. Salary increases amount to a 2% increase to the budget with command staff at almost zero.
Outside of the scope of the Sheriff’s presentation is a consideration of the pension. With any pension plan, pension obligations earned this year may require additional monies down the road depending on a number of factors. Most likely pension benefits will require future supplementary payments. There is no way to determine what you will actually be spending on an employee’s pension benefits for a given year since price of the benefit is dependent on how long pensioners live and stock market/economic conditions.
Commissioner Dukes addressed the Sheriff following his presentation, “Sheriff there is no doubt that you run a tight ship.” He suggested that the $800,000 in excess fees for FY 2014-2015 be kept by the Sheriff’s Department instead of returned to the county. “I am prepared to make a motion that you get to keep that money, because there won’t be any money coming from property tax for you.”
It is important to emphasize that the Sheriff did not present this solution. He suggested using extra revenues from increased property values to fund his budget increase. However this was discouraged. Assistant County Adminstrator George Zottlein explained, “Basically we did collect 1.6 million in tax revenue coming in due to the millage rate staying the same and assessed values going up.” He explained further however that they are estimating a loss of $2.1 million in balance forward cash. Balance forward cash is money that is left over from the previous year that is carried over to the new year. He stated that $22.8 million of balance forward cash came into FY15 from FY14. The county estimates the balance forward cash coming into FY16 from 15 to be $20.6 million. Mr. Zottlein explained that the balance forward cash is a major source of general fund revenue that would more than offset the additional tax money coming in. The general fund’s general revenue is down over a million dollars from FY 15 to 16. Mr. Zottlein stated that the “Sheriff was correct about getting the extra money in, but we also have to look back and see how much money we’re carrying forward- we have that much less coming forward from the prior year.”
The Sheriff responded by stating that the estimates for balance forward cash is not always accurate. He explained that in one day last year between 9/30 and 10/1, balance forward cash increased from $17 million to $21 million.
The Commission adopted the tentative millage rates and budget in which $4.2 million dollars were cut as a result of not increasing the millage rate (budget is $99 million instead of $103 million). The FY 2015-2016 budget is $608K less than current FY budget. The final public budget hearing will be held 9/22/15 at 5:01pm.
Following the adoption of the tentative millage and budget, the Commission approved Mr. Zoettlein to work with the Sheriff’s office to get an accurate figure on the amount of money that can be returned to the Sheriff minus 18.5% for reserves.
The only Commissioner that opposed the motion was Commissioner Holcomb who stated to the Sheriff, “Know that this commission will not throw you under the bus… What’s our job? Keep roads, fix roads, keep our people safe. Sheriff’s a big part of that, Chief Hechler is a big part of that so I would ask for George and the Sheriff to work together, but I think we should do a little bit more than that.”
Commissioner Dukes stated that if we go better than that it’ll be taken away from other folks.
The idea of giving the sheriff funding through the mid year adjustment in March or April was floated, but not voted on at this point.