New Patrol Division initiative to be launched to try to reduce traffic problems
Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt Hoffman has proposed a budget of $225,451,927 for the 2026 fiscal year, which will start on Oct. 1, he told the County Commission this week.
The preliminary overall county budget for the 2026 fiscal year is $2,517,024,837, Kim Radtke, director of the county’s Office of Financial Management, reported this week.
As always, Hoffman told the commissioners on July 2, “The bulk of this year’s request goes where it goes every year: law enforcement. The figure for that division was put at $160,424,180. For the Corrections Division, the proposal is $50,588,268.
Hoffman noted that the total is up about 12%, compared to his adopted budget for this year; 73% of the funding “is basically [for] personnel,” including the ancillary expenses for his more than 1,000 employees. However, he pointed out, about $2.5 million of the budget represents grants that the agency has received.
He told the commissioners that he not only is trying to deal with the growing county population, but he and his staff also are contending with factors over which they have no control.
The two biggest drivers of his budget increase, Hoffman said, are the higher cost of employees’ health insurance for the 2026 fiscal year: $3,163,567; and the uptick in the Florida Retirement System rate: $1,733,984. Together, he noted, they comprise about 65% of his budget’s increase, year-over-year.
For the jail, he continued, the contracts for food services and medical care also are rising. The food services expense is up $233,738; for medical care, $466,776. Those contracts, he explained, “have escalators built into them.”
Then he addressed plans for technology upgrades, noting that the records management system the agency uses dates to the 1990s. “We’ve been kind of limping it along year after year.”
Since he is asking for fewer additional full-time employees with this proposed budget, Hoffman continued, a big focus for the 2026 fiscal year is on new technology that will help the Sheriff’s Office function more efficiently by being able to predict crime.
The Bureau of Commanders of the Florida Sheriff’s Association provided justification for 43 new full-time employees for the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office in FY 2026, Hoffman noted.
He also plans to establish a Real Time Information Center, he continued. “This is going to be kind of an ad hoc center initially,” he explained, as he does not have the space to set up the type of facility seen in other jurisdictions. Nonetheless, Hoffman noted, expanding the number of county license plate readers in the next fiscal year will help, as those already in use have enabled the agency to “solve a lot of crime, everything from murder to robbery to vehicular homicide …”
Nonetheless, he pointed out — again referring to the new technology — the data from those readers “has to be reported somewhere,” so it can be analyzed in an effort to create strategies for community policing.
“I think citizens would be surprised,” he said, if they knew that deputies with the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office can conduct field interviews with suspicious persons or write trespass warnings, for example, on the north side of University Parkway, “and those same [suspects] are on the south side [of University Parkway] next week,” committing burglaries and other crimes, but the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office knows nothing about those Manatee County contacts. “We’re not on the same page in terms of sharing this data.”
Ultimately, Hoffman continued, he would like to see law enforcement officers in the three counties of the 12th Judicial Circuit — DeSoto, along with Sarasota and Manatee — sharing data.
For another example, he explained that if a deputy in Escambia County has entered details about burglaries, and suspects, into that Sheriff’s Office’s software, “We should know that,” in the event those suspects show up in Sarasota County.
He again emphasized that the new technology “is a very important part of this budget.”
Radio, outfitting new deputies and aviation expenses
Then Hoffman turned to his need for new Motorola radios, necessitated by the company’s notice that it would stop providing any support for the current equipment by the end of this year. “It’s an amazing piece of technology, in terms of GPS and an LED screen,” he continued, showing the commissioners one of the radios.
In fact, Hoffman pointed out, even if a deputy “gets in trouble” and cannot speak into the radio, the deputy can push an orange button on the device, and the Sheriff’s Office will know the location of that deputy with a margin of error of only about 5 feet.
“This radio right here is smarter than me,” he joked, noting that he had taken a two-hour class to learn about all of its functions.
“This is a significant upgrade for us,” he added of the expense of the new radios; he is seeking $2.6 million for them in FY 2026. One radio, Hoffman noted, costs $7,142.
He and his chief deputy, Col. Brian Woodring, have agreed to phase in the new radios over three or perhaps four years, Hoffman said, because of the expense.
His staff will be able to use the older radios in the jail, he added.
Yet another factor in his higher budget for FY 2026, he said, has been the increase in costs for each new patrol deputy. He showed the commissioners a slide that noted the overall expense in 2016 was $133,394, including salary, benefits, vehicle and radio.
This year, the slide said, the expense is $248,827.
The Sheriff’s Office is able to work through the Florida Sheriff’s Association to get the lowest bid possible for the Chevrolet Tahoes it uses, Hoffman explained. He prefers those vehicles, he noted, because they “are safe; they are reliable.” The agency has GMAC-certified mechanics who handle them, he added.
“We get a really good return at auction,” Hoffman pointed out, when the Sheriff’s Office no longer needs them.
Overall, he said, the cost of putting a new patrol deputy in a Sarasota County zone has gone up 86.5% since 2016.
One more significant factor in his proposed budget increase, Hoffman continued, is the expense of maintaining the agency’s two helicopters. The figure for that in the FY 2026 budget is $2,136,766.
He emphasized that the Sheriff’s Office has the only aviation unit in the entire county. “We back up Manatee and Charlotte and other state agencies,” he noted, as well as the rest of the law enforcement agencies in Sarasota County.
With the two helicopters, Hoffman pointed out, the agency can have one in the air “about 90% of the time.” The Sheriff’s Office can assist with offshore rescues and fires, for examples, he continued. “It translates into lifesaving, as far as I’m concerned.”
Continued rise in traffic crash investigations
Turning to another slide, Hoffman began an explanation of key new positions he has requested in the FY 2026 budget.
Four extra full-time traffic deputies will be sought, Hoffman said, emphasizing, “Our crashes are through the roof in this county.” The related slide noted that the number of crash investigations climbed 26% from 2020 through 2024.
Moreover, Hoffman pointed out, the annual count of crashes with fatalities consistently has run from 58 to 60. “Those are high fatality numbers,” he stressed.
Col. Woodring, the chief deputy, discussed the Patrol Division details with the commissioners, presenting a slide with details that he noted the senior staff had shown them for the past five years during budget workshops.
In 2015, Woodring said — when Commissioner Tom Knight was sheriff — the agency began working on a strategy to increase the number of patrol deputies.
As a result, Woodring continued, the Sheriff’s Office does have 24-hour coverage of the county 365 days a year.
Last year, he added, the agency calculated that it investigated over 80% of all the crashes in the county. This year, until May, he said, the figure had risen to over 82%. Woodring told the board members, “I don’t see that percentage lowering at any point.”
Just the prior evening, he said, he spoke with a member of Troop F of the Florida Highway Patrol, which covers the counties from Manatee south to Collier and east to Highlands County.
That Troop has 117 allotted positions, and 19 of them are vacant, he stressed.
Further, Woodring noted, the Highway Patrol’s “mission has changed a little,” with Gov. Ron DeSantis having called on the Highway Patrol to provide personnel for border patrols in Texas and now in Monroe County. Troopers also are being trained to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Woodring added.
“It’s not uncommon for us to have maybe one, two, maybe three [troopers] at the most for Sarasota and Charlotte counties,” he said, emphasizing that the Sheriff’s Office is focused on providing a higher level of service to people involved in crashes.
He explained, for example, that a solitary trooper working both Sarasota and Charlotte counties on a given day could be in Punta Gorda when an incident occurs in Sarasota County. It typically will take that trooper about 90 minutes to reach the Sarasota County scene, Woodring continued, plus “another hour or two to do the investigation.” Thus, crash victims are going to experience “three-plus hours sitting on the side of the road.”
In response to a question from Commissioner Knight, Woodring said that in 2019, the Sheriff’s Office handled more than 5,600 crashes in the county; the Highway Patrol, 2,100. “Flash forward to 2024,” Woodring continued, and the number of crashes deputies dealt with was 6,600-plus, while troopers handled 1,500.
Additionally, Woodring pointed out, the number of DUI crashes has risen over the past six years. They are averaging 400 on an annual basis, he said, with about 55 fatalities over the six-year period. “One fatality is bad enough,” Woodring said.
Agency members have talked about what they can do, given all of that data, he continued.
The decision was made to create what the staff is calling a Special Traffic Area Response (STAR) team, Woodring noted. The four new patrol deputies will be assigned to that unit, he said, and its No. 1 mission will be to deploy to areas of the county from which the Sheriff’s Office receives the most complaints about traffic issues, as well as to “hot spots” known for incidents, such as River Road in South County and the Fruitville Road-Cattlemen Road intersection in Sarasota.
Based on experience, Sheriff’s Office personnel know one crash will occur in each of those latter two locations before the end of this week, Woodring added. Because of the number of crash investigations, he said, “We are stretched thin.”
“We have a lot of hit-and-run crashes, too,” Hoffman told the board members. The license plate readers help officers find offenders in some of those cases, he added. On other occasions, however, if a patrol deputy is unable to reach a scene fast enough, Hoffman indicated, it becomes impossible to pinpoint a suspect.
‘I’m anxious to see how this [STAR initiative] is going to work,” Hoffman said.
New help for cold cases and fighting economic crimes
In regard to other new positions, Hoffman explained that since the 12th Judicial Circuit has won an additional judge, the Sheriff’s Office needs an extra deputy to serve as bailiff in that judge’s courtroom, as dictated by state law.
Civilian personnel with the Sheriff’s Office will be able to handle some of the video monitoring in the courthouse, Hoffman added.
Next, Hoffman noted that the agency needs another civil deputy, with its civil process work up 20.7%. “It is significant,” he stressed of that number.
Moreover, he told the commissioners, he wants to be able to send at least two civilian deputies to serve eviction notices, as two officer-involved shootings have taken place during such circumstances. One suicide of a resident occurred, as well, when an eviction notice was being served, he added.
In some cases, Hoffman pointed out, the decision is made to send three civilian deputies with eviction notices.
Further, he said, with his current staff, civil process can be served only four days a week, leaving Patrol Division deputies to handle the work on Fridays. The new position will mean the Patrol Division no longer will have to contend with the responsibility on Fridays, he added.
Then Hoffman pointed to his decision to create a position for a detective who will be responsible solely for solving cold cases. That will be the first time in his 20-plus years with the agency that such a step has been taken, he emphasized.
“We’ve got a couple of these cold cases that we are really close to making an arrest on,” he added.
Cold case work, he explained, entails rebuilding files, contacting family members and undertaking research on leads, for examples.
The agency has 28 cold case homicides, Hoffman said, as well as 10 long-term missing persons cases.
Yet another new position will be an Economic Crimes Unit detective. The amount of economic crime in the county is outpacing the Sheriff’s Office’s ability to handle such cases, Hoffman explained. Only about 42% to 45% of the economic crimes are being dealt with by his current staff, he said. “Some of these cases are very, very complex,” he noted.
The Sheriff’s Office also needs another deputy to work in the Fugitive Apprehension Unit, he continued, which is responsible for serving warrants. Those deputies, Hoffman noted, “do a lot of surveillance and tactical work” in an effort to track down fugitives. “The warrants are up almost 10% [for all law enforcement agencies combined in the county],” he added.
The Sheriff’s Office also needs a new Marine Unit deputy, Hoffman continued. “We’ve had two marine deputies for 20 years,” he said. “We’re long overdue.”
Boat registrations in the county have climbed “double digit percentages over this period of time,” he said.
The agency already has a vessel that the new deputy can use, Hoffman noted.
Even though he was requesting 28 new Sheriff’s Office positions, Hoffman told the commissioners that he could not help but wonder whether he should be seeking more, given some of the metrics his staff had assembled about the county. Those included figures related to the numbers of passengers who use the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport, to Siesta Key Beach’s continuing to get No. 1 rankings in the country, to the fact that Wellen Park near Venice and North Port is the sixth best-selling community in the United States.
