The Broward County Commission has agreed to provide an additional four million dollars to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office (BSO) to help fix staffing issues that resulted in thousands in abandoned police calls.
In recent times, dozens of emergency call takers in Broward have been walking off the job. Sheriff Gregory Tony told Commissioners during a meeting in April that his agency did not have the money to fill the empty positions.
The staffing issue led to thousands of abandoned police calls in Broward. A South Florida SunSentinel investigation found that abandoned calls, those which are disconnected before they are answered, increased 26 percent from 2019 to 2021. In February, there were 14,505 abandoned calls.
The issue of staffing was later raised at a Commission meeting in early May, where things got heated between the Sheriff and a commissioner.
Sheriff Tony had suggested various salary increases and hiring incentives to retain staff that would cost the county $4.7 million. But Commissioner Mark Bogen made it clear that he was not in support of giving the BSO more money.
“When you have a business with constant problems, if you don’t make changes to your management to figure it out, if you just throw money at it, I think it’s a huge mistake,” Bogen said.
Bogen had also suggested that Tony and the BSO may not be fit to run the county’s 911 communications, and that the county should try to find someone with more experience.
At the Commission meeting on May 24, Commissioners did, however, agree to give the BSO $4 million to fix issues at the call centers. Commissioner Bogen said the main priority was that the BSO gets the funds it needs to retain workers.
The Broward County Sheriff’s Office is a public safety organization responsible for both law enforcement and fire protection duties within Broward County, Florida. With 5,400 employees, it is the largest sheriff’s department in the state.
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