The price tag to put Sarasota County Sheriff’s officers on patrol

As Sarasota County’s population rises, so does the need for the Sheriff’s Office to hire more sworn officers to maintain a similar operational ratio of deputies per capita. 

During the County Commission’s June 20 budget workshop, Sheriff Kurt Hoffman told commissioners that to keep up with the state’s average of 1.66 deputies per 1,000 residents, he needs to hire 125 deputies. The agency’s current ratio is 1.21 per 1,000.

Hoffman said he will submit budget requests to hire 20 new deputies each year over the next five years — in today’s dollars a cost of $20.5 million per year for vehicles, fuel, equipment, uniforms and all the tools required for law enforcement.

Responsible for protecting the population of unincorporated Sarasota County, the Sheriff’s Office currently employs 463 sworn deputies and has four vacancies. It also employs 210 sworn corrections officers.

“In this budget, we do have FTEs (full-time equivalents) related to growth, and for the new commissioners we’ve been talking about this for a number of years, being able to build out the FTEs that we need to be able to deal with the growth in Sarasota County,” Hoffman said. “So in this budget you have before you today, I have 20 law enforcement positions, and I have four civilian positions.”

That doesn’t include replacement of patrol SUVs. The Sheriff’s Office drives approximately 7 million miles per year, exclusive of helicopters, four-wheelers, boats, etc. The entire department budget request is $181.8 million.

During COVID, Hoffman said the department was unable to order all the vehicles it required to maintain fleet needs, so he’s looking to add 15 to 20 vehicles to catch up in terms of fleet replacement. 

Hoffman said between a new patrol SUV outfitted with a police package, computers, radios, uniforms, weapons, salary and benefits, etc, it costs approximately $205,000 to put each additional deputy on the street. With population growth showing no signs of abating, growing the force beyond the current 463 sworn deputies to maintain the current ratio, much less reach the statewide average, is not an option.

“Certainly we need more deputies and this is the first step in that,” Hoffman said of his request for 20 more this year. “Whether that gets us to 100, 125 or beyond, we’ll evaluate that year by year, but certainly we’re not going back in terms of the population of this county and the number of visitors. It’s not going to go the other direction.”