Budget suggestions

The Hernando County Commission will conduct a workshop this week to review the various department(s)budget requests for the coming year. The Hernando County Sheriff's Department has submitted a budget exceeding $30 million which is 9.8 percent over last year. One line item the commissioners should closely consider when reviewing Sheriff Nugent's budget is the overall cost of his department's vehicles with the related cost of yearly maintenance,vehicle replacement, and vehicle insurance. The Sheriff has a current policy to allow all the patrol deputies to take their vehicles home. The deputies use these vehicles for personal use when not on duty. The thought behind this vehicle policy is that the visibility of the cruiser in local neighborhoods and commercial districts reduces crime. With this policy comes the cost of having a vehicle for every patrol deputy; providing vehicle insurance, even for personal use of the deputy; providing fuel at taxpayer expense for the patrol deputy to take home and back to work; providing maintenance on the vehicle; early replacement of vehicles due to higher mileage; and needing more vehicles for deputies on and off duty. The growth of this county has appeared to out date this vehicle take-home policy. A cost analysis should be done to compare the current vehicle policy at the sheriff's department, in terms of cost versus the savings. Savings that could be seen with deputies parking these vehicles at the end of their shift. This analysis should investigate whether the take home policy really prevents crime, versus the money that could be saved that could possibly put more patrol officers on the streets of Hernando County. Real statistics like the ones presented are available through the city of Tampa. When former Mayor Greco took office, at the end of Sandy Friedman's term, his first official act as mayor was to park all patrol cars when not in official use. The savings were remarkable and Mayor Greco was able to immediately put many more officers on the streets of Tampa without costing the taxpayers additional dollars. Hopefully, our commissioners will ask the tough questions for all the departments and consider an audit of this vehicle policy currently used by the Sheriff's Department.