07-12-2009, 04:53 PM
There is no doubt that our country is in an economic drought that has sucked up Obama’s stimulus money into a black hole, yet the Sheriff’s Office has not shown any indication it plans to make cutbacks. Unemployment is setting record highs and people with degrees are competing for simple sales jobs or waiting tables. I am perplexed as to how county tax dollars can be justifiably spent on educational benefits for management and command staff in the range of $40,000 per person when law enforcement is operating with a personnel shortage of over 100 deputies. If you multiply all of the civilian managers and all of the ranks of Captain and above receiving the county tax funded Masters Degree educations, there is hundreds of thousands of dollars being wasted that does not benefit the citizens in anyway. If an individual has aspirations to be in a supervisory position then it should be that individual’s responsibility and burden to attain the higher levels of education at their own expense. There is no direct benefit to the citizens by simply hanging another certificate on the wall to be used to cultivate another career after retirement. Another unnecessary expenditure is that of the law enforcement command staff driving the gas guzzling Chevrolet Tahoe and its fancy leather interior and other luxuries. I find it difficult to understand how a person in an administrative position who only drives from home to a desk needs such a perk. Wouldn’t a traditional sedan suit those needs and also save more tax dollars with fuel and the expense of purchasing a sedan versus an 8-passenger SUV.
Another huge financial burden on the citizen’s tax dollars is the plethora of civilians that are issued take home cars at the Sheriff’s Office. These civilian take home cars serve absolutely no service to the citizens and are clearly a privilege and unnecessary perk. The civilians drive from home to the Sheriff’s Office and park the car in a specially marked parking slot. There is no reasonable justification in these economic times to have hundreds of civilians wasting enormous amount of fuel at the county’s expense, maintenance and upkeep of the vehicles at the county’s expense and most troubling of all, the civilian manager’s issuance of vehicle takes precedence over the detectives and agents conducting investigations and providing protection to the public. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is a practice at the Sheriff’s Office to issue civilian managers brand new take home cars over detectives and agents with 80,000 to 100,000 miles on their vehicles. Wouldn’t it be prudent to take this unnecessary perk/privilege away and create a motor pool check out policy. If a civilian employee needs to travel for official purposes they can simply check out a vehicle from the motor pool. This is another expense that ranges in the hundreds of thousands of wasted county tax dollars. Now don’t forget about the deputies and civilians that live out of county and drive to and from work every day using county fuel. The out of county employees use a full tank of fuel every day just to drive to work then you have to tack on the fuel expended at work. One of the great benefits of the take home car program is that is provides the citizens with a higher profile patrol deterrence with more cars driving on the street, plus studies have shown that the wear and tear on take homes helps to maintain the fleet and not burn out the vehicle is they are running 24 hours a day. It is clear that those that live out of county do not serve the citizens with and extra patrol presence. How can a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office car serve Palm Beach County citizens in another county? Then couple impact of high mileage, fuel costs and maintenance and upkeep and here is another impact in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
There are also many programs and unnecessary positions at the Sheriff’s Office that could be eliminated in this economic crisis declared by our President. There are more than a few civilian managers that are receiving high paid salaries in the Community Involvement Unit that serve no law enforcement function and were created to generate votes for the election machine. Many of these civilian managers are also double-dipping because they have retired from the Sheriff’s Office and now they receive retirement plus a new salary and benefits that puts them in the $100,000-plus salary a year club. Is it necessary to have redundant positions in the Sheriff’s Office that are already being covered by positions in the Juvenile Justice System and Probation and Parole?
The Sheriff’s Office also maintains a Mounted Horse Unit that serves no realistic law enforcement function other than pageantry and show for the equestrian elite of the county. There is no useful need for mounted policemen in Florida in our current age of technology. The budget for scooping horse poop and parade rides costs the county over $300,000 a year in salary and expenses for maintain the unit. Since there is a shortage of somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 law enforcement deputies, the personnel of the mounted unit could be recycled into the road patrol division. You just have to ask yourself if the expense and resources are absolutely necessary in these times.
Take another unit with major operational expenses; the Marine Unit. Why does the Sheriff’s Office need to maintain several large boats, plus the personnel to perform a function that is already being done by the Florida Marine Patrol and U. S. Coast Guard? If a diver is needed, which is actually a rare occurrence, then deputies that maintain that expertise can be called out much like what happens with SWAT callouts. The fuel, maintenance and upkeep on a Sheriff’s Marine Unit fleet seems unnecessary when Federal and State agencies provide the service already. Here is another unit that could save the Sheriff’s Office hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Then there is the Sheriff’s Eagle Youth Academy. The facility and personnel costs the taxpayer in excess of $1 million. Again, is it necessary for a law enforcement agency to engage in a program that provides no law enforcement function to the citizens. These personnel could be recycled into law enforcement to replace the 100 shortage. The expense of eliminating the operations and Eagle Academy will free up hundreds of thousands of dollars. My question has always been why do the A-students get scholarships and the F-students get handouts; but the B & C students get nothing but the shaft and are given the burden of supporting the fancy lifestyle of the A-students and supporting the retarded-rejects of F-students? Is this expenditure of county tax dollars really necessary since the Sheriff’s Office has refused to publish the recidivism rate of Eagle Academy attendees. There is a reason why the recidivism rate is not released. The reason is simple; the kids are circulated back right into the dysfunctional home, culture and neighborhood they came from. This is another example of a waste of tax dollars.
Now let’s look at the supervisory ranks of the Sheriff’s Office. The span of control is supposed to be 5 subordinates for every 1 supervisor, but if you do the math it actually comes out to 2 or three supervisors for every 5 subordinates. This span of control issue is a major impact on everyday operations because supervisors do not perform any investigative functions. Supervisor simply stand around and watch and criticize instead of taking an active role in training, mentoring, guiding or directing. Take the Homicide Bureau for instance. Of the six supervisors in homicide; only two have ever worked as a homicide detective so how can someone supervise a job they have never done before? Is it necessary to have a Lieutenant, Captain and Sergeant all standing around at a homicide scene so-said supervising while 2 or 3 detectives investigate the crime. There are just as many people standing around and providing no function as they are conducting the investigation. This happens also in the Narcotics Bureau and Child Crimes Unit. There are times when the supervisory ranks actually outnumber the amount of investigators. Do you think that maybe one less supervisory rank could add a few more investigators to get the job done. There has to be some liability in assigning a supervisor to a job they have never performed especially when it’s a high profile crime like a murder. If the supervisors can’t rely on their experience to give advice, who do the subordinates go to when they need a question answered? There is clearly a span of control issue that promotes less operational productivity when supervisors are considered to be “Non-working”. The operational burden ends up on the shoulders of the subordinates who are obviously overwhelmed at times why a supervisor just stands by and watches the show. The span of control should be changed to 10 subordinates to 1 supervisor. The citizens of the county need more people that provide them with a service than just stand around at a $95,000-plus salary.
Is it also necessary to pay Sheriff’s Office employees longevity bonuses each year? Now the managers and all Captains and above receive free medical coverage for life after they retire, then they also receive hefty longevity bonuses and other special assignment pay. The Sheriff’s Office recently merged with the Royal Palm Beach Police Department and Lake Worth Police Departments and even though employees of these agencies worked for less than a year with the Sheriff’s Office, the employees of Lake Worth and Royal Palm Beach received their longevity bonuses in the tens of thousands of dollars. The longevity bonuses were designed for employees that have served over 10 years, but the merger agencies received the bonuses anyway. Is it necessary to allow the longevity bonuses when the Sheriff’s Office is already subsidizing the health and dental plans for employees with in excess of 10 million dollars?
One of the biggest county cost saving endeavors would be to unite Fire Rescue and the Sheriff’s Office dispatch centers. Why is it necessary to have two separate 911 communications centers? The merger of fire and sheriff’s communications centers would save millions of dollars and better serve the citizens. You could double the personnel answering 911 calls and eliminate the liaison troubles in state of emergency situations. United the county in one 911 Emergency Communications Center is the key to better serving the citizens of this county. The Sheriff’s Office and Fire Rescue need to explain in great detail why this has not been done. I can tell you it comes down to stubbornness and rivalry instead of placing the citizens as a priority. This would save millions of dollars for the county tax payers.
Now here’s some food for thought!!!! Let the whining begin…
Another huge financial burden on the citizen’s tax dollars is the plethora of civilians that are issued take home cars at the Sheriff’s Office. These civilian take home cars serve absolutely no service to the citizens and are clearly a privilege and unnecessary perk. The civilians drive from home to the Sheriff’s Office and park the car in a specially marked parking slot. There is no reasonable justification in these economic times to have hundreds of civilians wasting enormous amount of fuel at the county’s expense, maintenance and upkeep of the vehicles at the county’s expense and most troubling of all, the civilian manager’s issuance of vehicle takes precedence over the detectives and agents conducting investigations and providing protection to the public. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is a practice at the Sheriff’s Office to issue civilian managers brand new take home cars over detectives and agents with 80,000 to 100,000 miles on their vehicles. Wouldn’t it be prudent to take this unnecessary perk/privilege away and create a motor pool check out policy. If a civilian employee needs to travel for official purposes they can simply check out a vehicle from the motor pool. This is another expense that ranges in the hundreds of thousands of wasted county tax dollars. Now don’t forget about the deputies and civilians that live out of county and drive to and from work every day using county fuel. The out of county employees use a full tank of fuel every day just to drive to work then you have to tack on the fuel expended at work. One of the great benefits of the take home car program is that is provides the citizens with a higher profile patrol deterrence with more cars driving on the street, plus studies have shown that the wear and tear on take homes helps to maintain the fleet and not burn out the vehicle is they are running 24 hours a day. It is clear that those that live out of county do not serve the citizens with and extra patrol presence. How can a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office car serve Palm Beach County citizens in another county? Then couple impact of high mileage, fuel costs and maintenance and upkeep and here is another impact in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
There are also many programs and unnecessary positions at the Sheriff’s Office that could be eliminated in this economic crisis declared by our President. There are more than a few civilian managers that are receiving high paid salaries in the Community Involvement Unit that serve no law enforcement function and were created to generate votes for the election machine. Many of these civilian managers are also double-dipping because they have retired from the Sheriff’s Office and now they receive retirement plus a new salary and benefits that puts them in the $100,000-plus salary a year club. Is it necessary to have redundant positions in the Sheriff’s Office that are already being covered by positions in the Juvenile Justice System and Probation and Parole?
The Sheriff’s Office also maintains a Mounted Horse Unit that serves no realistic law enforcement function other than pageantry and show for the equestrian elite of the county. There is no useful need for mounted policemen in Florida in our current age of technology. The budget for scooping horse poop and parade rides costs the county over $300,000 a year in salary and expenses for maintain the unit. Since there is a shortage of somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 law enforcement deputies, the personnel of the mounted unit could be recycled into the road patrol division. You just have to ask yourself if the expense and resources are absolutely necessary in these times.
Take another unit with major operational expenses; the Marine Unit. Why does the Sheriff’s Office need to maintain several large boats, plus the personnel to perform a function that is already being done by the Florida Marine Patrol and U. S. Coast Guard? If a diver is needed, which is actually a rare occurrence, then deputies that maintain that expertise can be called out much like what happens with SWAT callouts. The fuel, maintenance and upkeep on a Sheriff’s Marine Unit fleet seems unnecessary when Federal and State agencies provide the service already. Here is another unit that could save the Sheriff’s Office hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Then there is the Sheriff’s Eagle Youth Academy. The facility and personnel costs the taxpayer in excess of $1 million. Again, is it necessary for a law enforcement agency to engage in a program that provides no law enforcement function to the citizens. These personnel could be recycled into law enforcement to replace the 100 shortage. The expense of eliminating the operations and Eagle Academy will free up hundreds of thousands of dollars. My question has always been why do the A-students get scholarships and the F-students get handouts; but the B & C students get nothing but the shaft and are given the burden of supporting the fancy lifestyle of the A-students and supporting the retarded-rejects of F-students? Is this expenditure of county tax dollars really necessary since the Sheriff’s Office has refused to publish the recidivism rate of Eagle Academy attendees. There is a reason why the recidivism rate is not released. The reason is simple; the kids are circulated back right into the dysfunctional home, culture and neighborhood they came from. This is another example of a waste of tax dollars.
Now let’s look at the supervisory ranks of the Sheriff’s Office. The span of control is supposed to be 5 subordinates for every 1 supervisor, but if you do the math it actually comes out to 2 or three supervisors for every 5 subordinates. This span of control issue is a major impact on everyday operations because supervisors do not perform any investigative functions. Supervisor simply stand around and watch and criticize instead of taking an active role in training, mentoring, guiding or directing. Take the Homicide Bureau for instance. Of the six supervisors in homicide; only two have ever worked as a homicide detective so how can someone supervise a job they have never done before? Is it necessary to have a Lieutenant, Captain and Sergeant all standing around at a homicide scene so-said supervising while 2 or 3 detectives investigate the crime. There are just as many people standing around and providing no function as they are conducting the investigation. This happens also in the Narcotics Bureau and Child Crimes Unit. There are times when the supervisory ranks actually outnumber the amount of investigators. Do you think that maybe one less supervisory rank could add a few more investigators to get the job done. There has to be some liability in assigning a supervisor to a job they have never performed especially when it’s a high profile crime like a murder. If the supervisors can’t rely on their experience to give advice, who do the subordinates go to when they need a question answered? There is clearly a span of control issue that promotes less operational productivity when supervisors are considered to be “Non-working”. The operational burden ends up on the shoulders of the subordinates who are obviously overwhelmed at times why a supervisor just stands by and watches the show. The span of control should be changed to 10 subordinates to 1 supervisor. The citizens of the county need more people that provide them with a service than just stand around at a $95,000-plus salary.
Is it also necessary to pay Sheriff’s Office employees longevity bonuses each year? Now the managers and all Captains and above receive free medical coverage for life after they retire, then they also receive hefty longevity bonuses and other special assignment pay. The Sheriff’s Office recently merged with the Royal Palm Beach Police Department and Lake Worth Police Departments and even though employees of these agencies worked for less than a year with the Sheriff’s Office, the employees of Lake Worth and Royal Palm Beach received their longevity bonuses in the tens of thousands of dollars. The longevity bonuses were designed for employees that have served over 10 years, but the merger agencies received the bonuses anyway. Is it necessary to allow the longevity bonuses when the Sheriff’s Office is already subsidizing the health and dental plans for employees with in excess of 10 million dollars?
One of the biggest county cost saving endeavors would be to unite Fire Rescue and the Sheriff’s Office dispatch centers. Why is it necessary to have two separate 911 communications centers? The merger of fire and sheriff’s communications centers would save millions of dollars and better serve the citizens. You could double the personnel answering 911 calls and eliminate the liaison troubles in state of emergency situations. United the county in one 911 Emergency Communications Center is the key to better serving the citizens of this county. The Sheriff’s Office and Fire Rescue need to explain in great detail why this has not been done. I can tell you it comes down to stubbornness and rivalry instead of placing the citizens as a priority. This would save millions of dollars for the county tax payers.
Now here’s some food for thought!!!! Let the whining begin…