New JSO hires clear major hurdle, but with strings attached

Jacksonville, FL — The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office is a big step closer to another major boost in the force.

The City Council Finance Committee has cleared increasing JSO's employee cap by 100 in the upcoming budget, with 80 of the positions receiving funding. They've made some changes from the initial vision laid out in the Mayor's $1.27 billion overall budget plan, though.

In each of his prior two budgets, Mayor Lenny Curry proposed the hiring of 40 more Officers and 40 Community Service Officers- and those were approved both years. For this proposal, the Finance Committee- who reviews the spending plan- was not as quick to sign on.

During their first pass at JSO's budget, the Committee questions were primarily two-fold- whether more hires was the best use of City resources to cut back on crime, and community trust with police. In terms of resources, the Finance Committee wanted to know from Sheriff Mike Williams where specifically the new hires would be deployed and whether other crime prevention tools could be a better use of money. On the community trust element, a lot of the questions focused on the policies around police shootings and the ensuing investigations, as well as the training new hires go through.

On Friday, the Committee passed the hires, with some changes. First, instead of the 80 officers being funded for six months as the Mayor proposed, 40 will be funded for six months and 40 will be funded for three months, with the remaining 20 officers under the increased cap set to be funded in the next budget year. The change is designed to better match JSO’s pace for recruiting and training, with the Committee saying JSO is still working on filling positions opened either under prior budget proposals or through retirements.

That change also saves the City about about $583,000 in salaries and benefits for trainees.

Hand-in-hand with that amendment, about half of the budgeted salaries and benefits have been moved in to a special contingency. The Committee wants Williams to prove within a few months that they are catching up on the recruitment and training side of things. If he shows that classes are moving through, the rest of the funding is freed up. If not, the Committee indicated the money could be put toward other areas, like the Police Athletic League.

Williams says he’s confident in the timeline they’ve laid out. He also vowed to the Council that they can handle the volume without degrading the quality of the training.

The new hires weren’t the only thing holding up JSO’s budget. The Finance Committee is also examining JSO’s plans to outsource health services at the Duval County Jail. That would boost the budget around $12 million in the upcoming fiscal year, but Williams says the cost would be increasing even if they kept the operations internal. He says JSO doesn’t have the doctors and nurses needed to keep the required standard of care, and keeping the system internal also keeps all of the liability on JSO.

The Committee on Friday questioned whether there’s time to seek competitive bids for the contract, in an effort to get a better deal. Curry’s Chief Administrative Officer Sam Mousa says they had been in talks with UF Health, but the hospital system didn’t seem like they would want to move forward. He says he’s not aware of any other entity that could possibly want to take on this responsibility.

Mousa says the plan is not to enter a contract until November 1st, so there is a small amount of wiggle room. For now, the Committee decided to postpone a final decision, and instead they will take it up again on September 19th, closer to the final budget vote. That will allow them to gauge interest from any other entity that may want to bid and get any final questions answered.

All of the action at the committee level is still pending full City Council approval next month as part of the entire budget proposal.