JSO highlights need for corrections officers during budget hearing

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office would get a $37.5 million budget increase under Mayor Lenny Curry’s proposed budget.

City council members took a deep look into the numbers Thursday afternoon and posed some tough questions to interim Sheriff Pat Ivey.

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Some of those questions revolved around the IT issues experienced this weekend, but Ivey said the incident didn’t result in a need to request additional money for cybersecurity beyond the $1 million that had already been requested.

Ivey told the council JSO disconnected some of its network systems this past weekend in response to anomalies that were noticed.

After working with the FBI, he said nothing of concern was found.

“We are back up and running fully operational,” said Ivey.

Ivey also noted the incident will have no impact on JSO’s budget request, arguing the ordeal showed the system in place is working.

“After this exercise, if you will, starting Saturday, there was nothing that we determined that needed to be hardened,” said Ivey.

As far as the budget increase JSO is asking for, the vast majority is comprised of contractually negotiated salary increases, employer-provided benefits and increased cost of doing business due to inflation.

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Ivey said he’s hopeful the increased salaries will help the agency recruit more corrections officers and dispatchers, where vacancies are most prevalent.

“Hopefully that will entice a few more people,” said Ivey.

At least one councilmember questioned why JSO isn’t asking for more money to hire additional patrol officers to keep up with the growing population of the city.

JSO currently has 1,787 sworn officers, or roughly 1.8 officers for every 1,000 residents, which is below the recommended 2.4.

Ivey said right now, the focus is on filling the 109 correctional officer vacancies.

“So, we felt like at least at this moment we were not a dip. We were able to maintain the police vacancies for one year and then we’ll start building on that again,” said Ivey.

Because of a change in state law that took effect this year, any budget allocation for JSO is essentially just a recommendation.

Sheriffs can now shift money around within the department without council approval.

It was a point of concern raised by some members Thursday, but Ivey vowed he would not abuse that new power.

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