Sheriff's Office budget and drone efficiencies

1:27:23I'm gonna thank them very much. All the women and men in the Sheriff's Office have been great and the partnership with Fire Rescue has been growing more and more. As um our budget it's gonna be coming up soon, but um as our budget will be proposed, it's from May first. So uh there's a couple things. That have come up before since then. Uh one is 100% of our budget goes towards 80% of 100% of our budget, 80% goes to personnel, 20% for operating costs. Um there's one thing that's come up Uh besides the tax issue, but

1:27:53the retirement rates. Uh we're waiting to see what happens, but that could be a $2.5 million impact just to the sheriff's office alone because of Cola increases. So we're gonna wait to see what happens with that. So as our budget was proposed, we do not know uh what happens with that retirement rate, but that could be another $2.5 million uh from our budget that we're gonna have to use towards uh that call. cost and then you know the taxable assessment we're waiting for July Mr. Wells appreciate so we'll find out soon enough what those numbers look like. So the biggest thing for us is

1:28:23pay raises. In our budget you'll see there's no new deputies that we're asking for, it's pay raises and I'll get into the slides later on but We're just trying to stay competitive with the other people. Uh two of our members were here back in 2012. You remember we lost over a hundred members to different agencies. We are losing them left and right. And so plans were in place to keep up our budget. And you'll see, you know, we're trying to stay competitive everything, but it's not just sworn personnel. We lose civilians. Um we lose civilians to other county organizations.

1:28:53Uh the pay raises are higher, they make more money, and so we're trying to stay competitive, not even from a from a civilian standpoint. Uh the other part too is facing us is um You know, they have signing bonuses. We haven't done signing bonuses, we don't have the ability. The way they do signing bonuses, I'll get into that, is they have vacancies. We don't have vacancies. Everything we get we fill up as quickly as we can, and I'll explain a little bit further about that. So As I said, no funds are going to a certified personnel. For efficiencies, and I know this is going to come out, we'll see what happens with the disaster relief

1:29:23funds, but we'll talk about drone first responder. That's a partnership that would make our county way more efficient partnering with P with the fire rescue. But from that standpoint, you know, we're talking about how we're consistently can get more efficient in everything that we do. And I'll talk more about drone first responders as we get into the slide. But that is something that if we can get the money through that disaster release fund, that'll be great. So just gonna quickly go through the slides. And this is when I need readers, but I don't have to get So total number of budget personnel FTEs

1:29:541223 Uh out of that 757. So that is everybody in uniform, every sworn personnel. The one thing that's interesting for Pasco, it's not usually brought up, is the fact that that includes 35 SRO, school resource officers, three sergeants, and one lieutenant. So in school in areas like Penellas and Hillsboro, they have their own school police. So that's something that you know it's unique for Pasco County that you know that is a budget cost to us that we take where in other places the school districts have that. So the 124 detectives

1:30:24are included in that 757. The total number of civilians are 466, but keep in mind 120 of those are school crossing guards. So that is state mandated, that is mandated, it's mandated when the county, when when developments are built up, you know, we get those assessments. So every year, you know, it could be five, ten different amount of school crossing guards that we get required to hire. And so there's a lot of things that combo on the unfunded mandates, and so that's you know, we talk about those consistently, and that's one that comes down on us. You can see our vacancies. Now you see a lot of civilian vacancies.

1:30:54A lot of it are school resource officers. I mean not school resource, I'm sorry, uh crossing guards. So they're retirees. We recruit. Very heavily, but at the same time is it's hot, they're tired, they want to spend more time with grandchildren. So we have a lot of transition and a lot of turnovers sometimes. And so that's the one thing. Um command staff gets brought up a lot. That's only three percent of the organization. So only three percent is probably that's actually the low. Uh the next slide is total personnel services. You'll see basically it goes same as

1:31:24probably the county. Uh it goes to you know insurance, goes to retirement, and it goes to pay salaries. So anticipated spending. You know, roughly six six point nine million dollars, uh 5.9, so roughly six million is salaries, and I just got the nice word, I got tapped on the shoulder, appreciated that it may be three percent, so that's gonna go up slightly. So greatly appreciate it. We weren't you know expecting it, but any little thing helps because as you'll see later on, you know, we have to stay competitive. Contractual

1:31:55services 1.2 million. I I know you all feel that pain too. You you know understanding, you know, you run the jail. You know those services, those contractual services escalate very quickly. So you you understand the pain of what it's like and to handle that. Um capital requests are low, and so I go back to there's no certified positions in this budget. One of the things and you know, talk about efficiencies is that We do service aids and so we recognize there's position there's

1:32:25positions that a gun and badge doesn't need to go out there a sworn personnel doesn't need to go so we hire civilians to do stuff. So that's something that we've been doing is more and more the more we can civilianize positions, it's cost effective for us. Um going back to salaries of the other agencies, the next one. So this just goes hits just to hit home. You all feel it, we feel it. But you know, when you bring in people that they're competitive, and I will tell you it's not a Pasco thing. The state of Florida was behind the curve. So when defund the

1:32:55police happened, everybody from up north wanted to come south. They came to Florida. They wanted to come down here because the bonuses, because there's a place, you know, the communities wanted us to enforce the law, we did that. The issue we face now is You know, people, you know, this next generation, not as many want to get into law enforcement. The numbers aren't there. And it's as I say, it's not a Pasco thing. This is a general consensus across the board. You talk to other sheriffs, you talk to other agencies, it's less people want to get into it. Um, I'll tease the chief, it's it's attractive now to be a firefighter,

1:33:26very attractive. Um, and so that's where you know people are aggressive, they want to get You know, do I become a deputy or become a firefighter? There's a lot more that are leaning to be firefighters now, and so I understand that. And so that's why I say, you know, we have to be competitive. And then you look at salaries. You know, Tampa PD is almost at seventy five thousand dollars plus they get bonuses and then more bonuses if you live in the city. Hillsboro's right up there, Pinellas, Polk County, you know, and they get up to twenty five thousand dollars in bonuses. And so That's something they look at. It's I

1:33:56mean it's you talk about sports free agencies. It's free agencies in and law enforcement too. They want to they're gonna go where the money is and so that I don't I don't blame them either. I understand that you're out there risking your life doing things and so that's why for years we've been trying to build a culture, but at the same time is We've had this people say it. I love the culture here. I love what's going on, but I gotta put shoes on my kids' feet. They're growing. I gotta, you know, get new jeans. I gotta put them in school, I gotta get them in sports. So they understand and they say, look, it's just I'm gonna get a few dollars more for going somewhere else. It makes sense, and and we can't argue that.

1:34:27So where what is Pasco? Where do you guys start at?

1:34:30So we will be at s if if everything goes through sixty-five and slightly higher if we get to three. percent. Okay. So we'll be yeah. So we're try but the thing is remember all these agencies this is last year, they're all going up too. So we're we're just we're just trying to catch up. Right. So that's that's the big thing for us is that We're consistently trying to catch up there by the same as everybody in this room. Everybody feels the pain, but we're trying to catch up. It's not just law enforcement, it's on the civilian side too. So our biggest operating, retaining new members. If

1:35:01if we lose it costs way more to lose members and have to retrain somebody else. That is probably from a business model is the worst thing we can do is start losing people because then as we've talked about before in the past, you all understand you're dealing with Trying to recruit somebody, put them through the academy. Because now nobody really goes through unless we sponsor them. Now we're sponsoring through the academy. Now we're putting them through field training. Now by the time they hit the street, you're almost like two and a half years later. They're on the street. You're way behind. And so it'd been cheaper

1:35:31just to pay and give salary up front. um the capital costs, you know, a contract needs and state mandated retirement, went through that, but the future of capital and needs. So that's the one thing and I I'll go through first drone first responder a little bit, just so you understand the efficiencies.

1:35:49If we can get a drone out there quicker than we can get a human being, it's 100% and we can get oversight of what's happening. So I'll give you a couple examples you may have heard of. Um, but have illustrated very well. So we have a pilot program down in holiday. There was a young teenager, he was about to he wanted to commit suicide, he ran from his house. It was on the west side of fifth of 19. Uh units couldn't get there quick enough. They're going code, but they can't get there. The young boy's running, he's got a weapon in his hand. He the drone takes off from the school where

1:36:19we have the test pilot at. They're able to spot the kid. It's up high enough, he doesn't realize it's there. They're able to find him, spot him. He's hiding under a neighbor's house, a couple blocks away. And then our deputies are able to converge right on him, get him help, get the assistance they need. If that drone hadn't done that, what would have happened is they would have gone to the house, checked the house, call units to start a perimeter up, start a perimeter. Now we have multiple units on a perimeter. Then you call the dog, then you call a unit with a drone to put the drone up. So those are the type of things that

1:36:49would have taken hours probably to find this young man, and it took moments. The other one too is you talk about efficiencies. We don't fly to helicopters except for emergency situations. So we only fly to helicopter when required. If we're working with fire rescue and we're putting a Bambi bucket out because there's a fire and we're dropping the Bambi bucket. If we're going into a location and we have to harness somebody down to save them, we drop the harness down and we save them. If we have to have a tactical situation, we have to put people up. That helicopter costs a lot of money. Is it critical? Absolutely. 100% The

1:37:21fires in this county would have spread a lot quicker and a lot faster had those Bambi buckets not been there. But if it's a situation we can throw a drone up, You're talking pennies on the dollar compared. So we're kind we're always looking at efficiencies and it'll now because I appreciate y'all giving the money for the new helicopters. Those helicopters, they're 2,006 year old helicopters, but they will last a lot longer now because we're not flying as much because we're flying the drones. The other one is the partnership with fire rescue. We can fly those drones up. If there's a fire, we can actually go overboard and see what's happening, give them

1:37:51a perimeter of what's going on, where the fire is. There was actually a warehouse that there was an air conditioner unit on fire. It would have taken hours for them to search the building, but the drone was able to go on top of the heat sensor, see where the fire was, and it was a it was an air conditioning unit that was sparking up. We're able to work together on that. The other one efficiency is when people call 911. One. We understand that they're panicking, they're scared, they don't know what's happening. So they may say, oh my gosh, there's a crash at 19 and 52 and there's bodies everywhere and there's cars all over the place.

1:38:22And they and then they drove past. Well, by the time you know deputies get there, we're like, okay, there was one guy standing outside of his car, it was a fender bender on the side of the road. But fire rescue sending as many units as they can. We're sending units, we're calling FHP to send the cavalry, and then we get there and it's a fender bender, somebody's standing outside of his car, and everybody's kind of like, What are we doing? What we got called it. So if he can send a drone up, the drone will see what's happening, give a better response, and then we can dispatch appropriately to what We need so we're creating efficiency. So besides disasters and storms and

1:38:52planning things out, the efficiencies are there. So I said if there's a capital call need that comes out of the uh disaster relief fund, that's something that would make us more efficient because I go back to we're not hiring we we're not able to hire new deputies because of budget restrictions, but at the same time is we have to look at those false force multipliers that are making a difference out there. So So know I said a lot. Appreciate it. I know you're all tired, but that's the budget, and I'm sticking to it. Until we get our three percent and Mike Wells brings us our real

1:39:23numbers. Thank you. So

1:39:27uh thank you. Sheriff.

1:39:33It was in your procurement process.

1:39:37Um when you're senator, don't you know the benefit of your procurement process? City and counties procurement processes based on an air. Carrie can give you all the bloody details that we have to deal with on how long it takes, how it increased cost on contracts and time is money. I guess it's probably a difficult question to answer, but How much money do you think you

1:40:07all save, if it's even possible, uh, every year based on your less constricted procurement process that sheriffs get to enjoy across the the state?

1:40:20So uh Commissioner Oakley prevention. You can't say how much how many crimes you stopped because you did crime prevention messaging, but I I will tell you that our procurement process is extremely efficient in the fact that we do still go out the bid, we handle the bid process, we look at things. But at the same time is the efficiency at which we can operate is extremely fast. And we've consistently heard that it's hard to deal with counties, not but counties in general, because procurement processes, the way things operate, the way the bidding process operates.

1:40:50The other one too is Going to the lowest bidder isn't always the best pr best option. I mean If you're building a building and you know a building liter literally costs ten million dollars and it's only bids two point five There's no way you a two point five million dollar compared to everybody's bidding at ten is gonna be good. So that is something that, you know, I mean common sense tells you that, but then also but unfortunately the restrictions you all have is is tight and so I I I I can just you know there's things God willing that when um There

1:41:21is the uh hearings in November where you know county hearings and we talk about legislative issues. God willing that day we can have another conversation, but as for now is my position as sheriff I can tell you you're spot on. I think it is way more efficient that the constitution that is sheriff we can operate and purchase items than it is is handling the way the commission has to do

1:41:41it.

1:41:45But I'm sure just based on time alone and all the staff time and the processes that go along with it, there's such a significant savings and then it can take the public dollar and put it to work. uh for what it's intended to in the procurement. Um so that's I think that's incredibly important. Oh yeah to all of us here. We're we're ready to not be in staff to not be handcuffed with the expense of the of the uh procurement process. With the SROs

1:42:16y'all ab your department absorbs it Did I hear you correctly that the that school districts could theoretically absorb the SRO cost?

1:42:26So we're at a we do it about fifty percent ratio because we estimate about hundred, you know, 180 days school and then the rest of time. Uh but training and everything else, I I I don't I can't speak for Superintendent Lake. I don't think they can I I don't think the way their current budget is now they can they can take it. Um you know you're talking about. Talking historically, Penels has been doing it for years. I think I forget how long Hillsboro's been doing it. I don't know how I I can't speak on his behalf. I don't think I'm almost positive that he can't just take it over and absorb it now. But

1:42:57I think, you know, that is the especially the the school crossing guards. That like I mean that unfunded mandate when people are oh we need two more crossing guards. I mean those things come out of our budget or we need three more depending on schools coming up online. People don't consider that. Oh that's a that's an unfunded mandate on the sheriff's office to take care of.

1:43:13Is anybody from do we know what you all spend approximately a year on the program off the top of your head? Two and a half million. Two and a

1:43:21half. Is

1:43:21that

1:43:21just for crossing or is that everything?

1:43:24Does that factor in uh head count for potent one or two a year, three a year, depending on how projects

1:43:33totally? Once that we know what kind of story is going on.

1:43:37Once the year the school's cut based on the school? Okay. It's about two and a half.

1:43:44So I'm sure you guys are more your team's more comfortable having you know, training those folks for

1:43:50They have to fall under us. So even in even in Hillsborough and Penelas they fall under the sheriff.

1:43:54So do they receive a reimbursement from the school district there? I I don't know how they're I don't know how they handle it.

1:44:02Interesting. I can tell you very much appreciate how y'all manage your headcount. But um uh it's it helps us see the actual picture and you you you use and hire folks that that you need and don't hold those vacancies, that's a big deal in the budget. So very much appreciate and appreciate over the last couple of years y'all taking a look under the hood and giving us giving us money back and helping us as we navigate um The difficult. Budgetary decisions that we We

1:44:33were fortunate to make But thank you, Sheriff. Thank you for being here. Appreciate it.

1:44:38So we're discussing and I wanted to get your opinion on it on school safety cameras. Um With the research I've done, um, the school safety cameras, they're only permitted in operated in F dot defined school zones. Um there are some counties like Miami-Dade, they've caught people speeding. in the nineties, 93 miles per hour. Um they would be on 30 minutes before, 30 minutes after when schools

1:45:08are present, never on the weekends, holidays, when school's out. Um what are your thoughts on that?

1:45:14So I can tell you is that speaking to my colleagues down in Hillsborough, they said it's been very effective. Yeah. It works. They've caught speeds that are just I I was shocked when they sold the number. I'm like, I can't believe like people are actually flying through the school zones that much. So that is something that you know if the board agrees and says they want to move forward with it, I would probably follow the Hillsboro model only because the safety issues that I've seen down there, but But it's one of those things that I don't know how I'm not sure about how Miami works, but I would tell you that Yeah. We can't be everywhere all the time but

1:45:45school school zones are I think one of those you know, I understand how people have issues about red light cameras, but I think school zones are one of those zones that it's like That's little kids walking. Like that is that is it's a sacred area that people are like, I get that. Right. If it's fifty-four and nineteen. People are kind of like, okay, it's a big interest like people but if it's right in front of a school, I think people look at it differently.

1:46:05I think they give you like an eleven mile hour grace period. You know, so so it's not even like they they nab you right away.

1:46:11It's better than troopers.

1:46:12Right. And the other thing is the other part of it that I want to throw at you was um out of the money collected, you know, there's a breakdown that goes to the county, to the school board, to the sheriff. Um, if m I don't even know if m you might not get any, but I was thinking that every penny that we collect could go to sidewalks in school zones. And then once once they're you know, we can keep expanding the sidewalks out to make it safe for the children. Right. Because um Um, you know, if it prevents

1:46:42one one fatality, they've done their job.

1:46:45No, it's it's interesting Commissioner, it's interesting you say that because I was just thinking I was just thinking as you're saying that you know we have those 56 vacancies and most of them are school crossing guards. That may help help they actually may reduce our school crossing guards from leaving. Yeah, that's actually one of their biggest issues.

1:47:02Oh, I can tell you stories where they've pulled hair. drivers out there pretending that they were doing running radar on people just to slow them down. And we're like, you can't

1:47:13do that. So like But they they get very so if they know that I think that actually helped me reduce the amount of people that leave because they get very up and they and I get it rightfully so, they're upset. They want us to go out there, we don't have enough deputies. Even though over the past year we went from twenty thousand traffic stops to thirty five thousand traffic stops because we hear the complaints of you know the commissioners and everybody else saying, you know, me we want traffic, so we're trying to find efficiencies. And to the other point is Yeah, I don't think you know, it's the same as um you know with the tickets. Everybody thinks, oh you know, they they remember years ago

1:47:44where people get tickets like, oh the sheriff's office running tickets because you need to build your budget up. We don't get the money, I'm like. So the same thing with this. So we don't get the money. So if it goes towards um, you know, cross uh to sidewalks, that's a that's a good thing. Okay. Okay. Mr. Sterker.

1:47:59Um I just want to compliment the Sheriff's Office on and Chase, who I work with a lot in in my district. Um Catching the new phenomena of young, young, mostly men, young boys, speeding on those motorcycle bikes and going in in inappropriate places. We even had uh some kids with four-wheelers with snooba. Snoobas, snorkels, or whatever they're called, going into the

1:48:30um the uh mitigation ponds and tearing them up in long leaf and um And just te tearing up the community so we've caught quite a few. And um and also the racers on Straubur. Twice now we've got the motorcycle racers going up and down Strabour because I can hear 'em from my house in Gulf Harbor's. And they're on it and they've been given tickets. So um uh it's it's been absolutely wonderful. So thank you. Um I get a lot of complaints about those. Well

1:48:58it's interesting you said I I mean last year from the commission there was over one thousand calls. I appreciate Chase uh taking you know I guess over a thousand calls last year just from the commissioner alone about that and now he's now he's pacing over six hundred. So you're gonna you're breaking the record this year already. But no, we we understand that that that's an issue, that's a concern, and so we hear that directly that you know those calls, you know, people are upset and we the issue we have is that You know, we're on the domestics, we're on other calls for service and we're trying to get there and by the time you can actually get there, these kids are gone. But I know those

1:49:28e-bikes I think from a bigger perspective has to be addressed. Yeah. Because those e bikes, it's not just the kids, but these people are driving those things all over the place and it's it's horrible.

1:49:37So the other number that looking at your budget book here that is really frightening and we we hear it is the uh The increase in the schools with the bomb threats. Uh do you see any decrease or is it still escalating? So how what can we do as a society?

1:49:55So so the problem we face is the same, so I can imagine it there it's three it's technology that we're not able to uh fortunately I How many people in here have gotten a call for service about a warrant from the Sheriff's Office? Mm-hmm. I mean like everybody 'cause t that's a big scam now. I mean everybody gets that scam that and it's it's people are calling from over the world, they're calling from all different places and they're saying you have a warrant from the sheriff's office and people are getting scammed by it. The same thing um with school threats. These are coming in from all over the world, they're coming from over the and so it's hard for us to catch

1:50:25up. We were able actually our our there's been several cases where announced were able to identify people because of that, so that's where we were able to catch them, but the Th I think there's over four hundred and twenty school threats last year. Uh S definitely went up. And so we're seeing that the problem is it's just a lot of some of these calls we're able to find out who did it. We're able to take care of it, but the majority of them are from outside the area. They're spoofed and if this says uh we're gonna shoot up SHS. You know, for us on like high school for Hillsborough St Steinbrenner. So everybody starts running to wherever it is. So that

1:50:55that becomes a major issue. But the technology is just overwhelming. But I will say this the overwhelming response of the deputies have been great. I mean we get everybody's like, Hey, what's going on with that? We get that 'cause people are concerned, but at the same time is the response has been great and it goes back to it um Um now what we're seeing, you know, with the teen and I hate saying teen takeovers, they're not takeovers, they're riots. Um like when they're taking over streets and they're not so that has been the next phase, but that's a technology issue too. Because now they're going on using technology to go. Now the one thing

1:51:25is people show up and when they show up, we can handle it, but at the same time it's trying to catch technology ahead of time to stop them from Trying to stir everybody up.

1:51:35It's a problem.

1:51:36Okay.

1:51:37Okay, that was it from me. Thank you.

1:51:38Thank you. So I'm I'll I'll come back to you, but um so I'm glad you brought up these two-related expenses that we've got. So I think we should be studying to what others are doing because if we're shouldering the burden. And again with this budget amendment coming forward with The ones eating up all the have to eat eat the uh big cuts coming up. that we need to go look at what others are doing because others are doing it differently if we've just done it because we thought it was the right thing to do and efficient to do, then we should be penalizing ourselves coming up and let that be

1:52:08put on the state to let them go put it back in the school's budget as opposed to us whereas they just said what their budget's gonna be. Um I know and I'm glad Commissioner Weightman brought up as far as like bidding cost, et cetera. When you were running the jail, you could probably do things a little bit cheaper than we could do it. And I think from the numbers we're seeing the ten percent change is probably closer to thirteen percent. So we're trying to work our way through that. Maybe we'll get some better results coming up. But we're gonna shoulder that money. And frankly, as

1:52:38I as I mentioned earlier, when they put the hundred thousand dollar number that were floating out there earlier this year, we did our number calculations. Just funding public safety, not just you, uh Dr. Sharazov, but the fire EMS, we were six million dollars short, not counting 911. So this budget of a hundred and fifty thousand is gonna be huge. We're gonna need your help up there as far as really looking at what they're doing to to try to try to get these things squared away so that we're not going through 'cause you know, we work very closely together trying to make sure when we had the deputy shortage when

1:53:08everyone was leaving that you put a three year plan together to go increase the salaries. We can track with that every step of the way. Because we don't want to see it. Just like our we've approved the fire EMS on our end. That we've got to you gotta pay the and your salaries. We I we got salary increases too. So why we're being hit so hard um is like it's been because we've been so efficient. I mean it's not just one department, I think the whole county's been very efficient how we spent our money. And being ninety-one percent un unincorporated, we don't have the extra budget that the cities get

1:53:38when they put their their numbers in. So what our people are actually paying are worse, but when you look at a just a chart to say look at the numbers here for the growth. And we get whacked for it and it's it's gonna it's gonna hurt us harder than most countries in the whole state. So we're gonna need your help as we look through that. Commissioner Yeager.

1:53:54So I have a question. Um for the drones, uh um how many schools do you currently have them on top of the rooftops?

1:54:03Okay, so one. So My question is like if we could expand the drone program and and meet you had a drone within a certain mile radius of of the schools because like if you have an active shooter or something like that, that drone's there in a heartbeat. You know, and I I worked at River Ridge, right? So when you have River Ridge Middle and High School, that's a large area to cover. So if you had a drone, it would easily be able to say Here you are, right? So how much with the with the money allocated

1:54:33to drones, would they be on top of the schools like spread out or how would where would you be?

1:54:40Yeah, so that that's what we work on schools. So that on the numbers, um, you know, if they're long term Unfortunately with technology we have to go leases because uh the technology if we didn't if we bought a capital item of uh technology, it's gonna be outdated within weeks. So that's why we have to do that because as you get the it actually gets the updates and everything. So uh put a 9 million we get 20 docs over ten years. And so with those twenty docs they'd be all over the schools, and so we have the zones where the most amount of activity where calls for service between us and fire rescue

1:55:10occur. So we would be fundamentally over those areas. But it would cover it would cover a large part of the doc of the county. The other part too is with technology with the upgrade. So when you get 20 docks, the amount of drones, you're just just talking about one drone. So right now a loiter time for a drone is probably about 35 minutes. But But if you go, you know, longer if the next generation drone may be 45 to 50 minutes. So as they keep building out, you get the updated drones, they come with the you know long-term lease. So especially the fixed-wing drones, we may be looking at an hour to

1:55:40an hour and a half loiter time. So that means we can get up further, be there quicker, and then be over to area. But it it it really just comes down to efficiencies. But then also, you know, there's other parts of this. It's not just about public safety, you know, before a storm, where public works and everybody has to where's our flooding, you know, where is everything cleaned up and we can get better visual to see what's happening. All the you know, the big thing now with insurance companies are they want to make sure that you have pictures of everything before a storm and then after the storm so these drones can go up, start taking video photographs of all county buildings

1:56:10to see what's going on. And we did it last time, but it took human beings to do it. This now would be automated and be able to fly and in the other one too is right now we're using civilians to fly these drones because another part, why use badge and gun when you can put civilians? Uh eventually the technology be flying itself. So we want to you know, then we can utilize those personnel for other things.

1:56:30Okay. And then just I I just have a comment that I want to say your community engagement team is absolutely phenomenal. I I bring them out to uh Moon Lake with me when we because it's just a safety thing. And you know people before our numbers dropped when they saw them and now our numbers we fed 236 families last time because now your guys are on the truck. They're helping unload the food. joking around with the residents and it's just been like this um this really great

1:57:00partnership so I just want to give a shout out to them because they they really are so friendly and make everybody very comfortable. So thank you. Yeah.

1:57:08Mr. Weber. Uh Sheriff looking at the other the neighboring agencies with polks uh bonus structure are is Are they capping the number at like ten or twenty? Deputies how are they do you know how what their model is other than here here's what it is, but is it you know for ten or fifteen years? I don't know how many incorporated cities they have within Pulp, but oh they got a

1:57:39few incorporated,

1:57:39yeah. Um they've got a handful of but I I think this is just uh usually the way I've seen the past is they say for the next year or six months. Once if you get hired in this time period, this is what the bonuses will be and this is everything. But I I can't tell you, I I don't know directly how Polk is doing it. I've known how other neighboring areas did it. It was because they were carrying so many vacancies that they used those vacancies to pay for the uh bonuses. And then once they probably hit a certain number, they said, Okay, vacancies were filled, we hit the number, we're done. done doing the bonuses.

1:58:09And I did that at the jail.

1:58:10All

1:58:10right. Trying to get workers, I think.

1:58:14So I have a question. So let's say this property tax thing passes, right? And you get fifty percent of our our budget, right? And we have in in five years after we have an influx of people moving here and they're no longer paying taxes. our population is going to grow by leaps and bounds. and you need more deputies on the road because we have a ton more people. What does that look like for you if we don't have the money?

1:58:41Technology. Technology. I can get into a whole long conversation, but technology is going to take over every one of our professions. Um like it or not, it's the wave of the future, it's the way it's gonna happen. Uh I I we see it in law enforcement not only because of efficiencies in operation, but because uh Uh one, not many people I go back to said earlier, not many people want a badge and gun. They don't they're not getting it. We still we're behind the curve, but nationally, but it's it's hitting us that people don't want to get this profession.

1:59:12The technology is there. So I can tell you we have technology in place now that uh we have analysts, civilian analysts that do a phenomenal job. If it wasn't for them the the the amount of detectives we would need way more detectives. So that's why I said like I I think everything that everybody's gonna be doing is more technology based and you know We're not a we're customer service, but we're not like you know some of the all other constitutional offices where people have to be there because nobody wants the robotic person to handle that. We're gonna we're still gonna have people up front,

1:59:43but behind the scenes there's gonna be so much of our operation that's gonna have to be keep going towards technology. technology that um that's the way that's the way I see the future and that's where I see you know cost escalators are gonna keep going up that way. But personnel costs because of you're not gonna be able to hire people or because the money's not gonna be there, we're gonna have to rely more on technology.

2:00:01And technology costs a ton of money too. Oh

2:00:03yeah technology costs a lot but at the same time is that's why I say like I think in the future With civili we're gonna you know, as we're leaning more towards civilians to do work out there on the street. I I think the law enforcement portion, they're gonna be door kickers. Like they're gonna be there's a domestic, there's something going on, they're kicking indoors, they're they're doing the things that you you know cop shows are based on. A lot of things that we do now, we go out there and handle that, you know, people you know you saw people saw on L IPD, but those are things that we're gonna have to rely on other people to do because we're gonna have to narrow

2:00:34down the functions of what law enforcement can handle.

2:00:40Other