City Commission approves incorporation of funds into current budget

The Sarasota Police Department (SPD) has won a $115,000 grant from the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) to use in combatting speeding and aggressive driving.
During their regular meeting on Jan. 21, the Sarasota city commissioners unanimously approved a resolution to incorporate the funding into the current city budget. No city match is required, as noted in the formal staff request for the item to be included on the Jan. 21 agenda.
Before the vote, Commissioner Kathy Kelley Ohlrich took the opportunity to congratulate the Police Department for obtaining the grant. She explained that she did not want the board members to act on the resolution, as the solitary item on their Consent Agenda No. 2 that day, without taking the time to recognize the agency’s efforts.
The Agenda Request for the item provided information that Police Chief Rex Troche had included in a Dec. 18, 202memorandum to interim City Manager Doug Jeffcoat.
Troche explained, “The grant reimburses SPD for overtime work to conduct high visibility, zero-tolerance enforcement operations at locations that incur frequent traffic crashes, speeding, aggressive driving issues, failure to obey traffic laws, and citizen complaints. This sub-grant aims to increase safety and awareness and reduce injury crashes by targeting key areas utilizing speed and aggressive driving prevention.”
The basic overtime expense for officers will be $66,458,” Troche pointed out in the memorandum. Another $964 will cover Social Security deductions, with $29,720 to be paid into the state retirement fund and $2,858 dedicated to worker’s compensation, Troche’s document added.
The grant agreement says that the project director within SPD “will be responsible for the allocation of personnel to achieve the greatest impact on speeding and aggressive driving.”
The final line item that Troche provided interim City Manager Jeffcoat said $15,000 of the grant funds would pay for “Instruments & Apparatus.” The grant agreement, which was provided in the backup agenda materials for the Jan. 21 meeting, noted that the Police Department will purchase “speed measurement devices necessary for program implementation.” No more than $5,000 would be spent per device, it added.

In his memo, Troche wrote, “The City of Sarasota is continually growing, and with growth comes construction. Construction results in congestion followed by frustration, agitation, and distracted drivers. Each year, more visitors come to the City of Sarasota for the winter and stay longer, with many relocating to the area permanently. This growth causes a substantial increase in vehicular traffic on City roadways, increasing traffic law violations. These trends have directly impacted the City and have seen a rise in the number of crashes resulting in serious injuries or fatalities.”
The Agenda Request form pointed out, “This funding opportunity has several objectives, including decreasing speed and/or aggressive driving crashes and fatalities citywide by 5% when compared to the October 1st to July 30th period from the previous year …”
The grant agreement added, “In addition to the factual problem of speeding and aggressive driving, there is a perception of speeding on many local roadways. Neighborhoods [with] roadways that are ‘through streets’ and ‘connector streets’ receive a high volume of vehicular traffic and [produce] many complaints [about] excessive speeds on these roadways.”
Further, in his memorandum, Chief Troche reported that the Police Department will participate in the Florida Southern Slow Down Campaign and that it will conduct or participate in three educational/community outreach events to provide public awareness about speeding “and/or aggressive driving,” along with offering “information and education to the public through the use of message boards local media outlets, social media, or press releases.”