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Sheriff juggles his budgets
By RYAN DAVIS, Times Staff Writer Sheriff Bob White will ask county commissioners today to help shuffle his remaining money for this fiscal year and to give him more money -- though not as much as once expected -- for next year. In order to pay nearly $1-million in unexpected medical bills for department members, White will ask county commissioners to transfer money within his 2001-02 budget. His proposed 2002-03 budget also will be presented, and it won't be as large as expected two months ago. On May 31, White asked for a $58.3-million budget, a 5.3 percent increase over this year. By July, it appeared the proposed increase had swelled to 8 percent. But according to a county memo prepared Tuesday, the sheriff's final proposal falls in the middle, a 6.6 percent increase. The Sheriff's Office budget accounts for about half the county budget. As for this year's remaining money, White wants to use $500,000 from the operating budget, about $119,000 from the capital budget and about $350,000 from the salary budget to pay medical bills, said his spokesman Jon Powers. White needs county approval to move the operating and capital money. Powers said the money would come from "a combination of normal budgetary surplus and belt-tightening." He said he did not have specifics as to what the money had been earmarked to purchase. Sheriff's officials have been scrambling to find ways to save salary money over the past month. They replaced paid overtime with compensation time. And just days before Labor Day, they eliminated time-and-a-half holiday pay, replacing it with comp time. Sheriff's officials said health insurance costs at the self-insured agency forced them to find money. They said six workers hit the $100,000 mark for medical bills this year. Only one employee had topped that amount in the previous three years. Some medical bills have gone unpaid, and nearly all bills are taking longer to be paid. County budget director Mike Nurrenbrock said intrabudget transfers are common at the end of a fiscal year. "That's a pretty significant figure compared to previous years," he said of the sheriff's request. -- Ryan Davis is the police reporter in Pasco County. He can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6245, or toll-free at 800-333-7505, ext. 6245. His e-mail address is rdavis@sptimes.com.
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From today's Pasco Times Editorial Letters Letters |
