{"id":376961,"date":"2026-08-20T22:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T22:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/376961\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T22:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T22:34:09","slug":"broward-to-vote-on-removing-fire-rescue-from-sheriffs-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/376961\/","title":{"rendered":"Broward to vote on removing fire-rescue from Sheriff’s Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Broward County Commission put the Sheriff\u2019s Office on notice Thursday that it\u2019s serious about taking back control of the county\u2019s fire-rescue service after more than 20 years.<\/p>\n

Elected officials voted 9-0 to put ending BSO\u2019s fire-rescue contract<\/a> on the County Commission agenda for Sept. 22, a move that is necessary to notify the sheriff and the public in time for them to weigh in on the subject.<\/p>\n

Officially, commissioners have another year before they must tell the Sheriff\u2019s Office the contract is not being renewed. The current contract expires in 2028, and each side is entitled to one year\u2019s notice if the other side wants out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know that public safety is our No. 1 focus as elected officials,\u201d said Commissioner Lamar Fisher, who is taking lead of the discussion at the county level. \u201cThe purpose of today\u2019s discussion is not to make a final decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bringing fire-rescue back to county government control would involve moving 907 employees out from the Sheriff\u2019s Office, Fisher said. \u201cWe already own the fire facilities and equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The county would have to assume the service contracts the Sheriff\u2019s Office has with smaller cities that do not have their own fire-rescue departments, including Weston, Dania Beach, Lauderdale Lakes and Cooper City.<\/p>\n

The arrangement between the Sheriff\u2019s Office and fire-rescue is a rarity. By serving so many communities, Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue managed to grow much larger through the years. \u201cIt is the most unique department in the United States, if not in the world,\u201d retired Chief Gregory Holness told Sheriff Gregory Tony in 2022 in an episode of his \u201cShop Talk with the Sheriff\u201d podcast.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s effective to take a regional approach to fire-rescue services, given the county\u2019s dense population and the fact that many cities are side-by-side, just a few miles apart, Holness said at the time.<\/p>\n

The Sheriff\u2019s Office has not commented on the commission\u2019s fire-rescue discussion.<\/p>\n

From the County Commission\u2019s perspective, some ongoing financial friction<\/a> stems from the Sheriff\u2019s Office\u2019s repeated requests for hefty budget increases without offering adequate transparency on spending.<\/p>\n

\u201cBroward County now has the opportunity to control its own fire department and its costs,\u201d Fisher said.<\/p>\n

Venice Howard, acting assistant city manager for Lauderdale Lakes, told county commissioners that her city faces similar funding hike requests from the Sheriff\u2019s Office and would like to see if county control of fire-rescue would be beneficial.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Lauderdale Lakes, this is particularly important because the cost of our current fire-rescue contract has increased significantly and continues to place increasing pressures on our financial resources,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

County Commissioner Alexandra Davis warned there is no guarantee services will be less expensive for cities if fire-rescue falls back under county control. But she said she was voting with the rest of her colleagues and expecting key questions about costs and benefits to be answered before the next vote is taken.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s vote asked the county administration to go lay out the required steps to take fire-rescue back. The next step is a large one: The commission will vote Sept. 22 on whether to end its relationship with the Sheriff\u2019s Office for fire-rescue services once the current contract runs out.<\/p>\n

The sheriff was not at Thursday\u2019s County Commission meeting.<\/p>\n

Officials have been openly discussing whether to remove the Sheriff\u2019s Office as the provider of security services at Port Everglades and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, and the county added a fire-rescue review to a consultant\u2019s mandate for a review. The review has not been completed.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the Sheriff\u2019s Office lost its contract with Deerfield Beach for police and fire-rescue but salvaged its relationship with Pompano Beach for three more years. (The Sheriff\u2019s Office provides Pompano police services, while the city retains its own fire-rescue service.)<\/p>\n

Broward County Fire Rescue operated independently until 2003, when it merged with the Sheriff\u2019s Office to serve most unincorporated areas of Broward County and the cities and towns of Cooper City, Dania Beach, Deerfield Beach, Hallandale Beach, Hillsboro Beach, Lauderdale Lakes, Pembroke Park, West Park and Weston through contract agreements, according to the sheriff\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4457.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Broward County Commission put the Sheriff\u2019s Office on notice Thursday that it\u2019s serious about taking back control…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[506,28,249,251,250,114,266,109],"class_list":["post-376961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-broward-county","tag-florida","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376961","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=376961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}