Nov. 27, 2017 – Mayor Robert Battista began a special meeting, acknowledging a “real data dump that came in (Monday) afternoon” as he called on members of the council to approve or modify Monday night’s agenda. The agenda was approved as published, with the objective of deciding whether or not a letter would be sent to the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) requesting consideration of an MSTU (Municipal Services Taxation Unit) for Sheriff’s Office services. This meeting followed an informational meeting last week (Nov. 22) with Ken Small, an expert on the use of MSTUs.
Shortly before the meeting began, the council received several documents related to the planned discussion. According to Mayor Battista, a copy of the proposed ordinance was already on the dais when the council convened. “This is what the county is considering should we request (the MSTU).”
After a brief look at the ordinance, Mayor Battista said, “I’m not about … to vote without having legal go through this document and let us know what it actually means and says.” Battista went on to say that he would not vote to approve the letter to ask the BOCC for the MSTU consideration. “It’s just been handed to me tonight. You can’t do that.”
Council Member Natalie Kahler explained that the proposed ordinance is modelled after the Pinellas county MSTU because it has already been contested, and survived a ruling by the Florida Supreme Court.
Vice Mayor Betty Erhard read from a letter received from the Sheriff’s Office, one of the documents received late in the day. The letter, which had also not been reviewed by the city attorney, stated in part, “The final decision regarding sufficiency of funding to perform those services for the city is a matter left to the discretion of the Sheriff.”
“The city will be billed by the county for any amount, payable during the month of October of the current fiscal year. The city shall make payment to the county within 30 days …. If a MSTU is established for operation of the Sheriff’s Office, the parties agree, negotiations related to funding may be initiated upon the request of the sheriff at any time. It is understood that the sheriff has no obligation to continue to provide the services, if sufficient funds are not available to perform dispatch service for the city, fire department and the city police department.”
Mayor Battista once again cautioned that the documents should be reviewed by the city attorney before any decisions are made using them as a basis.
Debate among the council members continued. Kahler summarized that the residents of Brooksville are being charged $1.7-million for Sheriff’s services that cannot be verified. Battista recalled data that one-third of traffic stops in the city are conducted by “green-and-whites,” the Sheriff’s Office deputies. “It’s not that we’re not getting services by the sheriff’s department, we certainly are … if the dollar amount comes out even, I don’t know.”
Kahler referred to a data sheet reflecting Emergency Operations Center’s dispatch logs, citing a “dispatch problem” causing delays in notices to Brooksville Police Department (BPD). Kahler added, “This is not (BPD) waiting two hours to show up to a battery, this is (dispatch) not telling us for two hours and our guys showing up two minutes after they were told.”
According to the spreadsheet, which was provided to The Hernando Sun, 49 incidents in 2017 were held up over an hour between the time the incident was first created in the Sheriff’s Office dispatch system and the time it was actually dispatched to the Brooksville PD. There was a total of 11,474 incidents dispatched to the Brooksville PD as of the creation date of the spreadsheet.
Spreadsheets provided also show several incidents in which dispatch for HCSO response took over an hour.
No one from HCSO was in attendance at the meeting
Erhard spoke directly to Brooksville residents who mentioned earlier the importance of cutting city expenses, “This does not impact our budget in any way. It’s not going to help us, we need to make some really tough decisions here. We’ve spent a lot of time on this MSTU rather than focusing on our budget … where we need to be.” For the record, Erhard said she will not support the letter. “Something dramatically needs to be done.”
Council Member William Kemerer said, “We’ve got three votes against sending the letter, but understand, if we don’t do something on the county- side, we will need to do something on our side… We’ve got to make a decision on how we’re going to handle this.” Of the money the city is paying HCSO to be offset by the MSTU, Kemerer estimates that the $1.7-million should drop to 1.1-million, which is not a big cut to expenses.
Battista also reminded both public and council that “an MSTU is forever” He also said that “We can never join it … it would put us up to 11 mils, which is against the law.” Kemerer continued that joining the MSTU would possible, but an unintended consequence could be losing BPD, or face a remarkable reduction in services.
Of HCSO’s involvement and services provided to the City of Brooksville, Battista said, “ (What HCSO) does in the unincorporated areas, is what (HCSO) does inside the city limits…” A uniformed officer of BPD interjected from the gallery, “That’s not true.” After a brief exchange, Battista told the officer to follow his chain of command.
Ending the discussion, Erhard moved, and Council Member Joe Bernardini seconded not to send to send the request to the BOCC. The motion passed 4-1, with Council Member Natalie Kahler casting the dissenting vote.
The Hernando Sun will follow up with future workshops and developments regarding the city’s budget.