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Sheriff perceives additional work that isn't truly there

During his successful campaign for sheriff in 2000, Bob White said he would serve the public with a capital "S."

Six years later, that Sheriff's Office service comes with a capital "$."

White is seeking a nearly 19 percent budget increase to $88.7-million, or nearly half of the property tax revenue collected by the county. It includes money for 47 new officers, including 25 patrol deputies, eight detectives, two forensic investigators, a pair of sergeants, plus a lieutenant and a corporal for the training division.

The hiring isn't likely to end there. A study, relying on Sheriff's Office data, was presented to county commissioners in August and called for adding two dozen officers annually for the next nine years to accommodate population growth and the increasing calls for service.

One problem: Nearly all of the increase in service calls came in the lowest priority categories, a Times analysis found, while the total number of serious crimes stayed nearly the same.

Noise complaints, curfew violators, obscene phone calls, illegal lawn watering, illegal parking and the so-called citizen assists helped push up calls for service 39 percent since White took office. The percentage increase, curiously, is more than double the population growth rate over the same five years.

The Sheriff's Office maintains that it is seeking staffing levels in which officers can spend equal amounts of time answering calls, in proactive patrolling and handling administrative duties like writing reports. There should be plenty of time for all of that considering the volume of calls that fail to generate paperwork. During the first week of June, for instance, deputies received 398 citizen assist calls, yet only four were worthy of written reports. Even the agency acknowledges that the calls can be so minor that they frequently don't merit documentation from a deputy.

It is understood that some new officers are needed. New schools are accompanied by new school resource officers, and new judicial posts require new bailiffs.

But are more deputies needed to answer more calls so minor that they aren't worth documenting? It is that kind of question that commissioners should consider as they finish debating their budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

Flush with a ripe treasury, the commission already decided to trim proposed spending by millions of dollars to further reduce its property tax rate in the coming year. That leaves White fighting for a share of a shrinking pie. His statistics, however, fail to justify financing a substantial addition to his department's payroll to address a perceived personnel shortage.

It also is disappointing that the Sheriff's Office approved a report justifying adoption of a law enforcement impact fee. In it, consultants Wade Trim Inc. refer to multiple studies showing optimum law enforcement staffing as two officers per 1,000 people. It is a ratio largely considered unsubstantiated by police experts, and sheriff's Col. Richard Worch conceded that the formula "is absolutely meaningless. It's nothing more than PFA - plucked from air."

Such candor should be shared with commissioners before they embark on adoption of an impact fee ordinance, which is intended to help defray the capital costs associated with a growing department.

Six years ago, the commission paid $100,000 for a consultant to examine the Sheriff's Office after a Times investigation showed that former Sheriff Lee Cannon had used bogus data to stump for a property tax increase for his department.

The severe partisan attacks on Cannon included a disregarded call for a criminal investigation of his management. Later, the consultant recommended that the agency's workload could be met with minimal staff additions and redeployment of existing resources.

White's amicable relationship with commissioners and his strong political popularity aren't likely to bring the vitriolic criticism that his predecessor faced. But as stewards of the public purse, commissioners have a duty to scrutinize the sheriff's operations. Commissioner Pat Mulieri, in particular, is an advocate of performance audits on individual county departments. Perhaps it is time for the commission to again consider an outside examination of its Sheriff's Office.

Either that, or White may have to be satisfied with an annual budget number that commissioners decide to pluck from air.

[Last modified September 11, 2006, 22:54:48]