Sheriff John Rutherford is calling for a property tax rate increase on Jacksonville citizens to help make up for the JSO's budget deficit.

"I will be advocating for an increase in our property tax rate, to provide necessary revenue for public safety. Our property tax rate is purported to be (if not the lowest) among the lowest of any large city in the state," Rutherford writes in a two-plus page letter sent to JSO employees yesterday.

Today he gave us more insight on what exactly that means.  Rutherford would like to see the tax rate “rolled” year-to-year so people will pay the same amount of money.  In other words, he wants the rate right now to bump up about 4/10 a percent.  This would leave each Duval County resident paying the same tax amount as this year, rather than seeing a drop that would correspond with dropping property values.

“It’s a balancing act so that people aren’t paying more taxes, but they’re not paying less either,” Rutherford says.

He says the city is losing $24 million this year because of lower property values.  If the tax rate rose to keep that money, Rutherford says he could save jobs and services that the office right now has to cut.  He feels the Sheriff’s Office should be entitled to $10 million of that money because the office makes up such a large part of the city’s budget.  With that money he would keep Community Service Officer’s employed and keep the Community Transition Center open.

In the letter, Sheriff Rutherford laments that the city's financial crisis has grown worse due to increase pension costs and decreased revenue. He says while budget talks with the mayor's office and city council have been "deliberative and comprehensive," he's still frustrated with the number of JSO expenditures that his office doesn’t control.

As a result, Rutherford says he's had no choice but to cut the things he does control, which are people and services. The letter says 319 total positions will be eliminated from JSO, 189 of which are vacant or will become vacant by FY 2012. The remaining 130 positions will be laid off.

Rutherford also says he plans to shut down the Matrix House drug rehab facility and end the Community Service Officer program, which will result in $9.2 million in direct savings for the JSO.

Additionally, he will be pulling certain traffic enforcements.  Right now, JSO responds to traffic incidents on state roads, even though those are already monitored by the Florida Highway Patrol.  He says he can no longer afford to do that, and they are talking with FHP about increasing state presence in affected areas, like Mandarin, Arlington and the Westside.  Also, JSO will no longer be conducting traffic detail for major events like Jaguars games or the Florida/Georgia game.  He says typically he would cover the costs of these details, but now it will be up to the parties hosting the events to find their own traffic details.  For the Jaguars games he doesn’t expect this will be a big problem because most people know their way around the stadium, but he says events like the Gator Bowl will likely see problems.

"I believe that we cannot continue to follow a 'scorched earth' approach to meeting revenue shortfalls, which are happening because of a) worldwide economic downturn and b) our city's long term failure to deal with the growing pension obligation...We, the city, need to cut expenses and increase revenue," he writes.

With the Mayor presenting his budget proposal to the City Council Monday, we asked the Sheriff why we haven’t heard of this tax rate plan before.  He says all the numbers weren’t out yet- the city didn’t get the results of a pension study until recently.  Once that was in they realized just how bad the gap would be.

He says the pension problem isn’t a result of anyone in the current city government, but it is a problem.

“It’s not this Mayor’s fault, it’s not this Council’s fault, but it’s also not the fault of those men and women in blue uniforms,” he says.

Mayor Alvin Brown said in a statement that while he respects Sheriff Rutherford and JSO, he's not going to raise taxes on the city's already burdened taxpayers.

“I have personally met with Sheriff Rutherford numerous times in the development of the proposed city budget. While I respect the Sheriff and our dedicated public safety officers and employees, I strongly disagree with the Sheriff’s proposal to raise property taxes on hardworking taxpayers. In these very difficult economic times where nearly 38,000 Jacksonville citizens are unemployed, taxpayers cannot afford to bear additional burdens. Instead, every branch of government must do its part to streamline operations, eliminate duplication, and increase efficiency. Key services like fire and rescue, libraries, and children’s programs should not have to sustain more than their fair share in spending cuts.”