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Pasco Budget for FY '09 Adds Jail Staff

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By Carl  Orth | The Suncoast News

Published: September 23, 2008

NEW PORT RICHEY - The roughly $9 million a year it may cost to staff the Pasco County jail addition once it is fully open caught the attention of the County Commission this morning.

During today's meeting commissioners reviewed 30 pages of last-minute adjustments to the county budget for fiscal 2009. The budget for the coming fiscal year is supposed to be finalized at a hearing 6:30 p.m. tonight, Tuesday, at the West Pasco Government Center.

The first floor of the addition of the Land O' Lakes Detention Center is supposed to open by the middle of 2009. Mike Nurrenbrock, director of the Pasco County Office of Management and Budget, said the Sheriff's Office will need to hire 34 more detention deputies over the course of the next fiscal year.

Nurrenbrock expects the county initially will have to give the Sheriff's Office $1,033,570 to staff the first floor, which will be put into service first. That's down from the starting point of $1.4 million in negotiations with the Sheriff's Office.

The jail addition will be open only part of 2009, though, Nurrenbrock pointed out. Half of the new hires will start working only during the last three months of fiscal year 2009, which begins Oct. 1.

The Sheriff's Office expects an additional 75 employees will be needed once all three floors of the jail addition are in operation, Nurrenbrock reported.

The county might be hard pressed to find the money to fully staff the expanded jail, Nurrenbrock said. The budget director gave an estimate of up to $9 million once the extra jail space is in use.

"It's $3 million per floor," Commissioner Ann Hildebrand marveled about the potential cost of the additional jail staff.

Perhaps Pasco County could recoup some of the cost of the additional jail personnel by housing more federal prisoners, Commissioner Jack Mariano suggested.

Nurrenbrock sees "pros and cons" to housing federal inmates.
The first floor of the jail addition will be needed strictly to ease overcrowding at the county's existing two jails, which are about 35 percent above capacity, Nurrenbrock said. Right now, inmates are sleeping in temporary beds on floors or triple bunks at the detention facilities in Land O' Lakes and New Port Richey, Nurrenbrock noted.

In other budget matters, Commissioner Michael Cox wondered why a budget analyst was added into the county budget.

Tracking impact fees is getting so complicated that a specialist is needed, Nurrenbrock said.

"It's becoming horrendous," the OMB chief said of the intricacies of impact fees, credits, proportionate shares and other budgetary details. In addition, state officials are exercising stricter financial oversight, Nurrenbrock said.

The budget analyst position has been vacant several years, Nurrenbrock said.
Carl Orth can be reached at 727-815-1068 or corth@suncoastnews.com.

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