{"id":308268,"date":"2026-06-15T19:57:54","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T19:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/308268\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T19:57:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T19:57:54","slug":"more-money-more-problems-for-sheriff-tony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/308268\/","title":{"rendered":"More money, more problems for Sheriff Tony"},"content":{"rendered":"

Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony was not in the room.<\/p>\n

But \u201cthe elephant\u201d was.<\/p>\n

The sheriff once again wants massively more money that he did last year, but two stark differences this year make Tony\u2019s request far more precarious.<\/p>\n

First, Tony persists in battling the commissioners who decide how much money he gets every year by persisting with a challenge of their rejection of a $73 million spending increase last year.<\/p>\n

The sheriff has every right to do that, but it is a poor political calulation<\/a>. He should drop his appeal immediately, as doing so would be seen as a conciliatory gesture.<\/p>\n

Second, more importantly, Florida faces enormous uncertainty over property taxes with an upcoming statewide referendum on a greatly expanded homestead exemption. Nearly half of the county\u2019s property tax collections go to the sheriff\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n

If Amendment 3 passes, Broward County will lose tens of millions of dollars next year. It\u2019s risking fiscal calamity for any county, city or special taxing district to commit to a permanent or recurring expense when the money might not be there a year from now.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

broward.org<\/p>\n

A summary of Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony’s budget requests for next year. A key number here is $937.4 million, the amount Tony would receive from county property taxes.<\/p>\n

At a workshop on June 11 with county commissioners, the sheriff\u2019s office presented BSO\u2019s budget request<\/a> for the fiscal year starting in October to a highly skeptical commission.<\/p>\n

The amount paid from property taxes would be $937 million next year, an increase of $104 million or 12.4% higher than the budget adopted for this year. When all other expenses are added, such as payments by 12 cities that contract with BSO, his proposed budget tops out at $1.55 billion.<\/p>\n

BSO brass said much of the increase is needed to give deputies a pay raise to make their salaries more competitive with nearby law enforcement agencies \u2014 a chronic problem that has led to high turnover.<\/p>\n

In Tony\u2019s absence, BSO Undersheriff Steve Robson referred to the sheriff\u2019s budget appeal as \u201cthe elephant in the room\u201d that somehow must disappear. Robson said much of the budget increase includes a \u201croll over\u201d of the money that the county rejected last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cDismiss the appeal,\u201d Mayor Mark Bogen suggested.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Beam Furr said: \u201cI don\u2019t think this is the year to add more law enforcement (costs) \u2026 Adding recurring (expenses) on anything would be irresponsible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commissioner Nan Rich was sympathetic to the need to give raises to underpaid deputies, but asked: \u201cWhere are we going to get the money from?\u201d<\/p>\n

Last November, Tony filed his budget appeal over the commission\u2019s rejection of last year\u2019s budget request with Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Cabinet. Since then, nothing has happened.<\/p>\n

DeSantis and the three other Cabinet officials have met publicly only twice since then and have not heard the appeal. Their next scheduled meeting is Sept. 15<\/a> \u2014 about two weeks before the end of the fiscal year.<\/p>\n

Tony is getting a very cold shoulder from the governor who appointed him sheriff in 2019, a clear sign that he wants no part of an internal Broward political fight.<\/p>\n

Tony should read two rooms. He should drop his appeal and seek a fresh start with the county.<\/p>\n

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony was not in the room. But \u201cthe elephant\u201d was. The sheriff once again wants…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2853,249,251,250,1205,482],"class_list":["post-308268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-editorials","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-letters-to-the-editor","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308268","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=308268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}