Commissioners welcome Richard Nugent's estimation that his office will not need funds from a proposed half-percent sales tax increase.
By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
Published November 22, 2003
BROOKSVILLE - Sheriff Richard Nugent says Hernando County commissioners should not invoke his office when pleading their case for a half-percent sales tax.
"I don't see us as a need," Nugent said Thursday.
If that's the case, commissioners said, all the better.
"If the sheriff doesn't need that, that's great," Commissioner Robert Schenck said. "He's trying to save the taxpayers money. That's what all public officials should do."
Commissioner Nancy Robinson agreed, saying the list of construction projects that a sales tax would support is not set in stone.
"If it's not a need, we will trim that down," Robinson said. "I think the sheriff has a good handle on what he needs for future expansion ... Just because something is on a list, it doesn't mean it will be done."
In its initial pitch, the commission listed a $3.7-million "Sheriff's Office expansion" as one of the items a sales tax would pay for. The idea came from the county's facilities master plan, generated a couple of years ago and left to gather dust.
But Nugent contends that, in the meantime, the county has satisfied his department's space requirements by borrowing millions to expand the county jail and to build an emergency operations center.
The emergency operations center, to be built just outside the sheriff's headquarters on Cortez Boulevard, will house communications and 911 operations. It also will include a training room for the Sheriff's Office.
"There's no need to have an EOC that sits empty except for two to three times a year" when the county activates its emergency team, Nugent said. "That will free up about 4,000 square feet for us."
The jail expansion, meanwhile, would include the sheriff's warrant department, now housed in the sheriff's headquarters. Nugent said his deputies spend too much time ferrying warrants from headquarters to the jail. Moving the warrant department to the jail saves time and money and opens up another 2,000 square feet at headquarters.
"In our estimation, there's no pressing need to build an addition to this building," he said. "Over the next five to 10 years, we're going to have adequate space here."
Nugent also questioned the need to include on the list $15.6-million for another jail expansion almost immediately after work ends on a 250-bed addition.
"If you're already doing a 250-bed expansion, will you need another 250 beds? Probably. But I don't know when," Nugent said, noting that the jail's original 200 or so beds served the county well for nearly 15 years.
County budget director George Zoettlein has said that inmate population projections indicate that the jail will need more beds.
Nugent did not go so far as to oppose the entire sales tax effort. He did, however, decline a seat on the county's sales tax committee.
He added that he had not been contacted before the county included his office on its wish list.
"If I'm asking for something on the sales, I would stand up and say, "I need something,"' Nugent said.
The county is asking voters to approve a half-percent sales tax for construction projects on the March 9 ballot. The School Board has a similar request on the ballot, to pay for new schools.
