Sheriff Getting Help in Fight Against Pill Mills

Pasco County commissioners agreed to give the sheriff extra detectives, medical staff and analysts he says are needed to combat the crime wave from pill mills that give such easy access to prescription narcotics.

But, commissioners said during a workshop session Tuesday, Sept. 13, there are no promises for next year.

Though commissioners couldn’t take a formal vote, they agreed to grant Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco everything he asked for in his budget.

Their decision wraps up most loose ends in the county’s $1.141 billion budget for the fiscal year of 2011-12 that starts Oct. 1. That amount includes special districts and constitutional officials such as sheriff and property appraiser.

Commissioners set the millage at 7.68 mills and cannot lower it. It is the same millage the county levied in the current fiscal year and includes 1.42 mills for the Municipal Services Fire Unit.

Tuesday’s agreement clears the way for the final county public hearing on the budget set for Sept. 20. That meeting is at 6:30 p.m. in New Port Richey.

Nocco asked for 23 new personnel, including 15 vice detectives, though his overall budget request was lower than the current year.

Nocco’s proposed budget of $83.37 million for the 2011-12 fiscal year is 3.5 percent below the current spending plan. The additional detectives, jail medical staff and three more crime analysts make up $1.6 million of the budget.

Nocco told commissioners during a work session in August he needed the extra personnel because of the explosion of crimes as addicts and drug dealers flock to pill mills for prescriptions of heavy narcotics.

Crime committed by addicts as well as organized groups getting large numbers of pills to resell out of state has strained his department, Nocco told commissioners.

He reached a sympathetic audience.

“It is a horrendous problem,” said Commissioner Pat Mulieri. “It’s touched everyone in the county one way or another.”

Tours of the sheriff’s office Nocco gave commissioners helped reinforce the problem.

“It was a real eye opener,” said Commissioner Ted Schrader.

Nocco said the addiction to narcotics is hitting infants who are being born hooked on the medications.

“We’re dealing with an epidemic we’ve never seen before. We’re losing the next generation out there,” he said.

But commissioners said there was no promise the money would be there in the future.

“I cannot guarantee, and that’s the only thing that worries me, that the money will be in there next year,” Mulieri said.

The sheriff could lower his budget because employees are paying 3 percent into their retirement funds that had come from the county, essentially amounting to a cut in pay for the workers.

Nearly all the reductions in Nocco’s budget cuts came from employees shouldering the shift in retirement payments, said Michael Nurenbrock, county budget director.

There is no promise the Legislature will keep those changes in place a year from now and that would put the county back to facing a $5 million or higher deficit next budget year, he said.

“The reason you have this flexibility is because those pension rates have changed,” Nurenbrock said.

The change in pension payments also boosted the overall county budget. Without employees kicking in more, commissioners would have faced cutting $7 million or more from the budget, he said.

If commissioners had cut the $1.6 million Nocco asked for in new workers, the money would have gone into the county’s reserves.

There was a little extra money to put into the piggy bank, anyway.

The final tally of the 2010-11 budget’s last days showed about $1.1 million more than when commissioners set their tax rate.

That’s after commissioners tapped those funds for $196,000 to keep pools open in Land O’ Lakes and Hudson and $47,000 for a veteran’s services worker.

That $1.1 million will go into reserves that now have enough to keep Pasco County going for five weeks. Commissioners set a goal of enough money for eight weeks.