Orange County Sheriff tells commissioners millions needed to keep crime rate down

Orange County is growing, and it seems we are hearing about shootings, break-ins and traffic crashes every day.

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Numbers presented by the Orange County Sheriff John Mina on Thursday show a 16% drop in over-all crime this year.

However, to keep those statistics from going up, Mina said he needs deputies, and to get deputies he needs money.

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Mina said if they don’t get raises, he won’t have them; telling county commissioners, “We can’t hesitate, we can’t blink we can’t wait another year.”

According to the sheriff the county will need to find $13 million to pay for deputies’ raises.

The office has a 10% vacancy rate which is not terrible compared to other agencies across the United States.

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The sheriff said that will get worse if they pay is not competitive, stating there is no choice but to spend the money.

“We must act now - by October 1 or you will see the vacancies over the next several years and you are going to see a delay in response times you’re going to see loss of services, a rise in crime. and you are going to see people getting hurt because we don’t have the necessary people,” Mina said.

Right now, the county will have to make the decision if it will come from a raise in taxes or from somewhere else.

That may be in the form of a MSTU (multiple service taxing unit) hike, but there are more budget hearings on the way and Mayor Demings said he was confident everyone would find a middle ground.

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