Jail budget discrepancy not sheriff's fault

Hernando Today ^ | July 27, 2010 | MICHAEL D. BATES

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BROOKSVILLE - An apparent discrepancy in the sheriff's jail budget was explained away Tuesday by Budget Director George Zoettlein, who said Richard Nugent is not asking for more money than the $10.8 million the county allocated to the private entity last year.

That backs up a pledge Nugent reiterated to Hernando Today earlier this month that he would not ask for more money. He also said he would run the jail more cheaply than Corrections Corporation of America and hopes to return $500,000 the first year of operation.Zoettlein said the discrepancy that came up two weeks ago at a commission meeting came about because the county did not build in $280,000 for an inmate ankle bracelet monitoring program that never materialized.

Instead, the county built that $280,000 into the sheriff's future jail budget and gave the impression Nugent was asking for more money.

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OK. Here’s how this scam works.

• The county increases the Sheriff's budget. In this case, he already said he could run the jail for $500,000 less than the private contractor got last year. But the Board of County Commissioners gives him all of what the private contractor got last year plus an additional $280,000. Our taxes might have to go up to meet this budget, or maybe not.
• At the end of the year, our “fiscally conservative” Sherff actually spends less than his full budget. He “returns” his “savings” to the county general fund.
• The BOCC now has additional funds in the general fund to spend or waste on their pet projects. They can spend this on other budget items, or on new items that weren't in the budget.
• The taxpayers paid an extra $780,000 for jail operations, but never see a dime of the “savings” returned to them.

If the Sherff wants to claim to be “fiscally responsible,” he should actually reduce his budget and not participate in this shell game with our tax dollars. But he's been doing this for years with parts of his budget, and he thinks it demonstrates “fiscal responsibility.”

I wonder what kinds of shell games he'll play with federal budget money if he should be elected to Congress.

Please, join me and stand with Sager in Florida congressional district 5. Also, steal my sig and post it in your posts. The HTML is on my FreeRepublic profile page.

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I stand with Jason Sager in Florida's 5th Congressional District.