NEW PORT RICHEY – Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco told members of the Pasco County Planning Commission at their Nov. 21 meeting that he needs more deputies.
Figures provided by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement show that Pasco County is the seventh most populated county in Florida but it is ranked 63rd among the state’s 67 counties in terms of the number of deputies per 1,000 residents, Nocco said.
The national average is two deputies per 1,000 residents of a county, Nocco said. The Pasco Sheriff’s Office had 1.08 deputies per 1,000 in 2019. That number dropped to one deputy per 1,000 by 2022, Nocco said.
“The ratio of deputies per 1,000 keeps dropping because the population growth is growing so fast we just can’t keep up with the number of deputies,” Nocco said.
Growth that occurs in the county doesn’t mean he may hire new deputies right away and then put them into service, according to Nocco.
There is usually a lag time of up to 30 months from the time when growth occurs to when new deputies have been hired and have received the training that is needed before they can begin their jobs, Nocco said.
An example he cited was that if a new housing unit were built at the beginning of 2024, its owner wouldn’t pay taxes on it until January 2025.
The Pasco County Board of County Commissioners wouldn’t make funding available to the sheriff’s office as a result of that growth in 2024 until October 2025 – after the county’s budget had been adopted for the new fiscal year.
“By the time we actually get them hired, trained and go through the entire process, you’re looking at October 2026,” Nocco said.
A large amount of the tax revenue the county receives is from residential properties according to Nocco.
Pasco County’s Property Appraiser’s Office’s records confirmed there is a very significant amount of residential property from which the county receives its tax revenue.
Only 10,938 of the county’s 316,796 real property parcels are commercial. There are 186,988 single-family parcels and 11,879 condominium units. In addition, there are 3,990 agricultural parcels in the county, according to county records.
The value for new commercial construction so far in 2024 is $198.7 million while there has been $2.55 billion in new residential construction, county records show.
The sheriff told planning commission members that he was concerned about that “because history repeats itself.” There have been sharp declines in property values in the past and that could occur again, Nocco said. And if and when it does happen, “we will be hurting,” Nocco said.
He emphasized the importance of having a more diversified base from which the county could receive tax revenue and suggested additional commercial and business growth would be a way to accomplish that.
