Officials pare down Sheriff's Office study

County commissioners may also appoint a committee to review consultants for the proposed study.

By ALISA ULFERTS

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 12, 2000

Pasco County administrators have narrowed the scope of a proposed Sheriff's Office study and will ask county commissioners on Tuesday to appoint a committee to review consultants' applications.

Sheriff Lee Cannon asked commissioners to fund a comprehensive management study of his office last month -- just two days after a series of Times articles detailed several pieces of inaccurate information provided by Cannon and his top aides to commissioners and voters.

The information was used by Cannon to bolster his case for a special law enforcement tax in 1998. The tax, designed to help with what Cannon termed a critical staffing crisis, would have boosted the sheriff's deputy force by 70 percent. Voters said no to the tax.

Commissioners agreed to have County Administrator John Gallagher meet with Cannon and his assistants to figure out what the proposed study should accomplish and how much it might cost. At a minimum, Gallagher and Cannon agree, the study should address the following:

Current and five-year projected service demands and needs at the Sheriff's Office

Operations and management practices

Current and five-year projected staffing needs

Organizational and deployment recommendations

Funding requirements and sources to adopt recommendations

Gallagher and Cannon have put together a request for proposal, which Gallagher will ask commissioners to approve on Tuesday. He also will recommend to commissioners that they appoint a committee to review and rank responses from consultants interested in performing the study. Gallagher and Cannon are proposing that the committee consist of them, plus Budget Director Mike Nurrenbrock, Executive Assistant to the Sheriff Harold Sample and a county commissioner.

Gallagher said Tuesday it will be up to county commissioners whether they want the committee to narrow the list of responding consultants to make presentations before the commission, or whether the committee will make the final consultant selection.

County officials have not yet placed a price tag on the proposed study, but a consultant hired by the Times to analyze one year's worth of department response times estimated a full, comprehensive study could cost between $85,000 and $135,000.

Information from Times files was used in this report.

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