Commission to hear sheriff's study proposals

By ALISA ULFERTS

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 16, 2000

DADE CITY -- County Commission Chairwoman Pat Mulieri will sit on the committee that ranks proposals for a staffing study of the Sheriff's Office, but all commissioners will hear presentations from the top-ranked firms, commissioners said Tuesday.

County administrators had recommended that a committee of county and sheriff's officials, plus a county commissioner, rank the firms the county hopes will submit study proposals, but left it up to commissioners whether they wanted to hear presentations from the top firms or simply let the committee select the winner.

Mulieri urged her fellow commissioners to hear the presentations.

"First of all, it will serve to educate us," Mulieri said.

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 rejected the tax.

On Tuesday, Cannon said he'd spent the weekend at a law enforcement seminar and repeated his position that the Pasco County's Sheriff's Office is understaffed compared to other agencies.

"We're nowhere near the staffing and administrative levels of other agencies," Cannon said.

County officials have said they won't know how much the study will cost until consulting firms respond to the county's advertising. One consultant hired by the Times to analyze a year's worth of response times estimated a full study would cost between $85,000 and $135,000.

In other commission action, commissioners agreed to search for grants to pay to hook up the Addell Gardens neighborhood to central water, at an estimated cost of $160,000. Wells in that neighborhood were contaminated by a gasoline spill in the late 1980s.

Also, county commissioners agreed to work with officials from the federal census bureau to encourage Pasco residents to fill out and send in their forms. The county loses about $1,500 per person per year in federal funds for uncounted individuals.

Also, commissioners agreed to have county staff review a study done for the city of Port Richey on the feasibility of purchasing Lindrick Utilities.

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