{"id":223191,"date":"2026-04-08T10:14:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T10:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/223191\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T10:14:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T10:14:18","slug":"florida-sheriff-county-could-reach-agreement-over-disputed-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/223191\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida sheriff, county could reach agreement over disputed budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers and the county commissioners ready to resolve their differences over the Sheriff’s Office 2025-2026 budget? A meeting next week could decide.<\/p>\n

Both sides are optimistic the issue will be resolved and the Flowers’ lawsuit against the county will be dropped. Commissioners held a two-hour closed-door session April 7 with their attorney to discuss a potential settlement.<\/p>\n

The discussion centered around how to resolve the pending lawsuit, Commission Chair Deryl Loar said.<\/p>\n

The special meeting has been scheduled for 9 a.m. April 14.<\/p>\n

“It’s certainly progress,” said Loar, himself a former sheriff. “I feel very confident” a settlement will be reached.<\/p>\n

Flowers also was optimistic a resolution would be reached.<\/p>\n

“It sounds like we are getting close to a deal,” Flowers said. “Hopefully, once the deal is signed off on, they’ll vote to move forward with it, and we can close out our budget dispute.”<\/p>\n

Lawyers for both sides are working on a settlement, to be discussed April 14, Flowers said. Terms were not immediately available.<\/p>\n

Indian River County Sheriff’s Office sues County Commission over budget squabble<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year, Flowers and the county were deadlocked for nearly seven months over his 2025-2026 budget request. He initially asked for $91.1 million, but the County Commission cut his allocation to $85.8 million. While that was a $6.9 million increase over 2024-2025, it was more than $5 million short of what Flowers wanted.<\/p>\n

In October, Flowers sued the County Commission in an attempt to get approval of his full $91.1 million request, according to the Sheriff’s Office attorney. Filed Oct. 2, the lawsuit alleges the County Commission failed to follow the state Sunshine Law and failed to provided a detailed breakdown of its proposed Sheriff’s Office budget during a public meeting.<\/p>\n

\"Sheriff<\/p>\n

Sheriff Eric Flowers speaks to Indian River County Commissioners, Oct. 20, 2025, during a special call meeting regarding the 2025-2026 Sheriff\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

That alleged refusal, the lawsuit claims, hindered the ability of Flowers and his staff to amend the budget.<\/p>\n

The possible settlement could have been sparked by a condolences letter Flowers sent to the County Commission after two employees, Danny Ooley and Stacie Mason, were fatally shot in the parking lot of the Main Library last month.<\/p>\n

Two people found dead after reported shooting outside Florida library<\/a><\/p>\n

In the March 26 letter, Flowers also asks whether the two parties could resolve the lawsuit outside of courts and Tallahassee intervention.<\/p>\n

“As gas prices rise and other expenses continue to increase, being properly funded remains vital to our mission. I continue to be willing to resolve our budget dispute without the intervention of the Cabinet or the courts.”<\/p>\n

Flowers’ letter concluded with an invitation to meet with commissioners individually to “find common ground.”<\/p>\n

The letter already has prompted meetings with four of the five commissioners, Flowers said.<\/p>\n

Colleen Wixon is the Indian River County government watchdog reporter for TCPalm and Treasure Coast Newspapers. <\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Florida sheriff, county move closer to end 2026 budget dispute<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Are Indian River County Sheriff Eric Flowers and the county commissioners ready to resolve their differences over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101028,30347,12188,28,30,29,673,45704,101027],"class_list":{"0":"post-223191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-budget-request","9":"tag-county-commissioners","10":"tag-eric-flowers","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-florida-headlines","13":"tag-florida-news","14":"tag-indian-river-county-sheriff","15":"tag-sheriff39s-office","16":"tag-the-flowers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}