St. Johns County BoCC, Sheriff: MORE FINANCIAL FLUMMERY, DUPERY AND NINCOMPOOPERY?
- Last month, Sheriff ROBERT HARDWICK and compliant County officials proposed $55 million for a Sheriff's Command Center to be funded with a 15%+ sales tax increase four out of County Commissioners want us to buy, like a pig in a poke.
- I asked for supporting records on cost estimates.
- I was then asked by SJSO, in an email, "What Command Center?"
- I called and told them I saw it on the County Commission, watching Government TV Channel.
- I was told they did not watch County Commission meetings.
- As JFK said during the Cuban Missile Crisis, "There's always some poor SOB who doesn't get the word."
- Curious as to the basis of the Sheriff's publicly sought $55 million, I have waited for weeks, without documents.
- Today I read a puff piece in Florida Newsline, which contains HARDWICK's latest estimate, $40-50 million.
- $40 million is a 27.2727% decrease from the amount sought by Sheriff HARDWICK and Office of Management and Budget Director JESSE DUNN.
Our incurious St. John County County Administrator has an accounting degree, and a law degree from Florida Coastal. Waiting for him to recommend County Commission hire qualified people.
We need to hire an economist, instead of baby-talking through more corrupt St. Johns County financial flim-flam, flummery dupery and nincompoopery on taxes, and who is taxed and how.
To date, there has been no forensic audit provided of the Sheriff's Department in the wake of a five-year embezzlement scheme, totaling some $702,666. Only the actual embezzler has been held accountable.
Meanwhile, it is obvious that Sheriff HARDWICK spit-balled his inflated $55 million cost estimates based on undisclosed documents, if any, which have not seen the light of day,
This is not transparency.
Simply by my asking for records, which perhaps did not exist, I've managed to help shave off $15 million from the inflated estimated budget for Sheriff HARDWICK's Taj Mahal.
Meanwhile, Sheriff ROBERT HARDWICK is not averse to cameras, constantly mugging for cameras in public, while privately torpedoing any money for police body cameras, and any informed discussion about "his" budget.
County Commission needs to pass an ordinance requiring constitutional officers submit their budgets by May 1, 2022, and have a meaningful workshop, answering public questions, before Memorial Day. I've repeatedly asked County Commission to set the May 1, 2022 deadline, which is optional for counties to adopt under Florida law.
So far, not one Commissioner has spoken to the need to oversee the budgets of the five constitutional officers -- Sheriff, Clerk of Courts, Tax Collector, Property Appraiser and Supervisor of Elections.
Wonder why?
It's almost as if they're other-directed hick hack sad sacks, incapable of conducting oversight hearings.
It's our money.
No explanation from SJSO about the 27.2727% change in the cost of the proposed Command Center.
No apology for providing unsupportable spitball numbers for our County Commissioners in support fo a 15%+ sales tax increase.
No respect for St. Johns County citizens and our intelligence.
Here's the softball "interview" by Florida Newsline, containing the inculpatory de facto admission by Sheriff ROBERT HARDWICK that his Command Center numbers were inflated -- a 27.2727 decrease from his request last month:
Q&A with St. Johns County Sheriff Rob Hardwick
Q: What are your top priorities for the Sheriff’s Office?
A: We just finished our strategic planning within our office, something we do annually to stay current, and we identified three priorities. The first one is to build and move into a facility for our Operations and General Services departments. We pride ourselves on delivering superior customer service to the citizens of St. Johns County, but we also want to have efficiency and be a nice place to work. The second is closely tied to the first, and that is to continue to prioritize compensation and benefits for all St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office employees. We need to pay them adequately so they can afford to work, live and play in St. Johns County. Finally, refurbishing and expanding our jail — to prepare for the county’s growth as well as provide the additional services required by our inmate population — will allow us to continue our mission to have people leave us in better shape than when they came.
Q: Can you give more details as to why a new sheriff’s office is needed?
A: Currently, our departments that are housed outside of the new Training and Communications Center (off Interstate 95) are located in five buildings as well as assorted smaller buildings spread throughout the county — and, in addition to many of these buildings being older, none of them were designed to handle the work of the Sheriff’s Office. For instance, our Youth Resources, Traffic, and Internet Crimes Against Children departments are housed in the old jail, built in 1953. The Office of the Sheriff and our Community Engagement Division are located in the old Wise potato chip building. Our Risk Management and Human Resources departments are housed in a building that originally was occupied by the county’s medical examiner. Also, all these buildings had to be evacuated during recent hurricanes, which although we are grateful to our partner Ring Power, which allowed us to use its building, is not an ideal situation for the Sheriff’s Office.
Q: What would the new office contain and where do you think it would be located?
A: The new building would contain the Operations Department (including Criminal Investigations) as well as General Services (including records, finance, risk division, IT, fleet, and the Office of the Sheriff). We would have office space for our command level team and the building would have space to allow us to hold meetings with the community. It would have to be a Category 5 building so that we don’t have to evacuate in the event of a hurricane. We would possibly be able to locate this on the property where our new Training and Communications Center is located and we believe, based on current construction costs, that it would cost in the neighborhood of $40 million – $50 million.
Q: What would happen to the old buildings that you currently occupy?
A: If we can move the Sheriff’s Offices out of the area, that would give us available real estate near the courthouse (which is mandatory) and the current jail to refurbish, expand, and connect to the current jail so it would all be one cohesive facility. Currently, we are occupying a jail built in 1986 (that replaced the 1953 jail) as well as four additional housing pods built in 1992, which bring our total beds in a piecemeal facility to 664. (Renovations were also done in 2010 and 2012 that added additional administrative space and the Community Work Release Center.) There are a lot of pieces to the puzzle as to how we must house inmates (gender/mental health/sentencing status etc.) and we really can’t use even our 664 beds efficiently. On top of that, we need to prepare for the growth of the county and the inevitable growth we will experience in our prison population.
Q: What is the best way for our readers to contact you with any questions or suggestions about this article?
A: They can email me at sheriff@sjso.org or call me at (904) 824-8304.
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