Quote:
Originally Posted by red tail
that's a letter from the union to the management and youre concerned?
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Well, that's not quite accurate. Your premise is incorrect.
The Sheriff is management and the FOP represents labor. The County Commission has absolutely no authority over the Sheriff with regard to management/labor relations.
What you have here is the union representatives supporting the Sheriff in a controversy with the County Commission. Both the Sheriff and the FOP take the position that the Sheriff's Office is severely underfunded.
Although the County Commission has no authority over the Sheriff, it is the responsibility of the Commission to fund the operations of the Sheriff's Office with tax money. The recent poor economy has had many Commissions searching for ways to reduce spending. Sadly, the Marion County Commission has done this by slashing the funding of the Sheriff's Office, leaving the deputies underpaid, undertrained and poorly equipped.
The Sheriff has made an eloquent statement to that effect and he is supported by the FOP.
The last part of my second career I worked for a Florida Sheriff's Office that had a deputy to citizen ratio of about 1.65 per 100,000 and I know we considered our response times unacceptable. The stress on the deputies was tremendous, with waiting calls stacking up, pressure to rush through calls and missed meals.
The reason for my post was to get some idea of the impact of the underfunding on response times of deputies to that area of The Villages that lies in Marion County..... where I live.
The statement of the Sheriff with regard to the need of his office for better funding is at the bottom of the page which appears at the link posted below. His statement is in italics at the bottom of the page and is titled
In Chris Blair’s Words.
Sheriff Chris Blair Wants You To Know The Truth About The Budget - Ocala Post | Ocala Post