Sheriff's Office gets great marks

Theses are the results from the recent Escambia County Operation Survey taken from http://www.myescambia.com.

Rate your level of satisfaction with Escambia County Sheriff Services.

Very Satisfied 32.3%
Somewhat Satisfied 33.8%
Neutral 18.1%
Somewhat Dissatisfied 8.0%
Very Dissatisfied 7.7%

According to this survey of 507 only 15% of the people aren't happy with the Sheriff's office. Poor Morganites.

[Dr Pepper]

Of those that responded to the survey, how many actually had contact with the Sheriff's Office during the past year? Stats can't tell the whole story if you don't ask the correct questions.


I'm not a morganite and I know there are a number of issues that plague our agency. Seven years of this same crap and I doubt it will get better under the current admistration.


How many employees saw the $10,000 to $20,000 or $30,000 doallr a year raise? Only those designated with the elite status of Director. The working stiffs might have seen $5,000 if we were lucky.


An $80 million dollar budget and no raise for employees?


An $80 million dollar budget and we still dont have adequate staffing for patrol or the jail?


An $80 million dollar budget and the agency can't afford a desk pad calendar?


An $80 million dollar budget and the agency cant buy a monthly planner/calendar books?


In May, during the last fiscal year, it became harder to gte approval for almost anything from the property room. Uniforms stopped being ordered, and if something wasnt in stock, the CFO had to approve the purchase as the agency was out of money. Anyone want to offer a guess when the agency will be out of money this fiscal year? An $80 million dollar budget and we are dirt poor.

Of those that responded to the survey, how many actually had contact with the Sheriff's Office during the past year? Stats can't tell the whole story if you don't ask the correct questions.

Unfortunately it's the same amount of contact as the average voter.

How about a little Christmas cheer anyone else remember when the admin could buy back some of your comp for Xmas. How about an Xmas bonus (LMAO). Hell my pop would give the garbage man 50 bucks and a bottle of the good stuff every Xmas. So is the life of the lowly public servant, we appreciate your dedication to the community, now work 6 side jobs to have extra cash to buy your son an Xbox and some games for Xmas. That was a lot of crying, I feel better, got to go work a gig see ya later.

After a few years at this department,I am convinced that some of you can cry about ANYTHING!

The previous poster felt it necessary to give a laundry list of all the bad things at this agency, so let me balance that by a list a good things, and things that could be, and ARE, much much worse at other places.

1. Pay. We are within 10% of the pay of NEARLY EVERY police agency in the panhandle, with the exception of Tallahassee Police, and we make more than many of those agencies.

2. Equipment. So the stock room stopped ordering uniforms, huh? Well who cares. Do any of you not have uniforms that are servicable? Is anybody missing necessary items that have not been replaced? I doubt it.

3. Vehicles. With only a few exceptions, every patrol officer that is not a 400 number (not a rookie for those of you not part of our agency) has a vehicle with less than 100,000 miles and a computer system. Granted, things go wrong with the computers and vehicles from time to time, but for the most part, they get fixed promptly.

4. Supervision. Can you imagine what it would be like to have to call a sueprvisor and let them know what kind of charges you have on a suspect before you take them to jail, and have your supervisor tell you over the phone if you did the right thing or not? And if he didnt like your arrest, he could (would) tell you to let that person go right there on the street after you already cuffed and stuffed him? THAT HAPPENS AT MANY AGENCIES.

5. Extra duty. We have the most laid back extra duty office I've ever seen. You work your jobs, stay out of trouble, and you dont have anybody bother you about it. Its not like that at many places, where you have to turn in a few bucks per hour worked to cover gas and expenses for the S.O. Again, we could just jack up the hourly rate a couple bucks to cover it, but it is a big hassle.


So many things that I hear complained about are so petty, I have to wonder wat people expect. We live in reality... not the perfect law enforcement community you all (or at least many of you) seem to hope for, where we are payed the highest in the area, have all teh best equipment, never squabble between departments and everybody can get every transfer and every piece of equipment they ever want.

We dont have calanders this year? Wa...

Adequate staffing for the jail or patrol? I just saw a whole list of trainees coming out to patrol from FTO, and you can't MAKE people apply to work at the jail. They hire who they can. Keep in mind they are competing with the Road Camp and teh State Department of Corrections for these applicants, and the state has their own academy at the prison, so they can take people who arent even certified. We cant do that. We work with what we have.

I know these facts will not sway you hard core whiners... but I want the good staff out there to keep their head up. The grass is NOT always greener on the other side, and if you think other places have less political and financial problems, PLEASE go there and see for yourself.

To the public, thanks for your vote of confidence in the recent satisfaction surveys. And to those of you making a big deal of how many people had contact with the S.O. to base that decision on, let me just say that YOURE NOT SUPPOSE TO HAVE CONTACT WITH THE POLICE! If so, you are either the victim of a crime or a suspect, and either way, I imagine you opinion of the police wouldnt be too high at that point anyways.

I am proud to work here. I always have been. I look forward to thsoe of you who complain (especially those higher up than me) leaving so I can take your job and do it better, with more pride, less complaining and more motivation to make the department as godd as it can be with what I have to work with.

We'll said Deputy Dooley.

The proper survey would have included a question that would have allowed us to know whether or not the survey respondent :

1. Had ever lived anywhere else, i.e., had knowledge of how other LEA's worked and were supposed to work,

2. In the same vein, what there experience was with LEA's - are they even knowledgeable enough to make a determination of the efficacy of an agency.

This was a satisfaction survey, not an efficiency survey, or effectiveness survey, or a professionalism survey. If the respondents have only lived in Escambia County, how would they know anything else ? How would they have a frame of reference for comparison ? For that matter, same thing to Deputy Dooley - assuming he isn't a RMc troll, if this is the only place that he has ever worked, then why wouldn't he be happy - he doesn't know any better. Me, I've worked other places - there are probably worse agencies than this, but there certainly are better ones, too.

I bet in Nazi Germany the Gestapo would have gotten high marks in a public opinion poll too - who talks bad about an agency when the operative emotion is fear of retribution, and not pride ?

D. Dooley how would you address compression in the salaries at the SO?

Please, before you speak about Jail issues inform yourself correctly. The jail is short because the lack of recruiting and @$%%$# who just left (D.W.). What about hiring freezes when they are so short at the jail officers are being force to work overtime for comp time only, but they can’t take time off because they are so short. Look the grass is always greener on the other side but the grass died on this side a while back. Not everybody at the jail is crying but enough is enough. 2008 will be here soon.

Please, before you speak about Jail issues inform yourself correctly. The jail is short because the lack of recruiting and @$%%$# who just left (D.W.). What about hiring freezes when they are so short at the jail officers are being force to work overtime for comp time only, but they can’t take time off because they are so short. Look the grass is always greener on the other side but the grass died on this side a while back. Not everybody at the jail is crying but enough is enough. 2008 will be here soon.

If you're being worked overtime and they wont pay you or allow you to take time off to compensate you for that time, get a good labor lawyer adn file suit in federal court.

The law is clear. The Sheriff is obliged to follow the federal law. Opps I forgot, the dosn't have to follow the law, he can say he didn't know he was violating it.