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Hernando Today

Sheriff Budget Reflects 3% Increase

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By KYLE MARTIN

Hernando Today

Published: June 3, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - For the third fiscal year in a row, Sheriff Richard Nugent has held back from adding new deputy positions to his force.

It's putting a strain on his crime-fighting resources, Nugent said, but the current number of deputies might be enough to keep crime in check for another year.

Future developments, however, are another story. When his office was approached recently to find out if there were enough deputies to respond to a new subdivision, Nugent had an unprecedented answer.

"For the first time ever, our response was no," the sheriff said Monday in an interview following the release of his proposed $32.8 million budget for the upcoming year.

And that reply is expected to stick.

The sheriff has bumped up his budget request over last year by $954,581, a 2.99 percent increase. Almost half of that comes from a 58 percent increase for fuel expenditures, which are expected to cost $471,220.

But mostly the budget is about the same as last year's. No cuts and no additions.

"It's a status quo budget," Nugent said.

On one hand, that's a good thing. Earlier this year, it was thought that school resource officers and crossing guards might be out of a job because of budget cuts.

The previous funding agreement worked out with the school board, with the sheriff's office bearing more of the expense, still stands. So do community services like the DARE program, gang prevention and the substations spread across the county.

But Nugent is not taking on anymore deputies, either. As in years past, Nugent has cautioned that his office is keeping close tabs on the time it takes for a deputy to arrive to an emergency. The population is going up, but the number of deputies on patrol remains at 2005-06 levels.

"At some point in time, we'll start seeing degradation in response time," Nugent said.

When that threshold is reached, the sheriff plans to start pulling deputies out of community programs and putting them back on the road.

That brings the sheriff back to his original point. The county continues approving new developments without new funding for deputies.

"There's really been no movement on our requests," Nugent said.

Reporter Kyle Martin can be reached at 352-544-5271 or kmartin@hernandotoday.com.

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