Agency to be responsible for all expenses except electricity, which county will provide
As one of its final, formal actions of 2025, the Sarasota County Commission unanimously approved an interlocal agreement crafted to facilitate Sheriff Office personnel’s ability to read license plates on vehicles in the county.
The proposal was part of the board’s Consent Agenda of routine business matters during its regular meeting on Dec. 16, 2025.
A county staff memo included in the agenda packet for that meeting explained that a representative of the Sheriff’s Office had contacted the county’s Transportation Department to request that the Sheriff’s Office be able to install and use automatic license plate readers (ALPR) and camera system hardware “on County and state-owned traffic signal poles that are maintained by Sarasota County” through an agreement with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT).
(The county Transportation Department used to be the Public Works Department. After the County Commission voted twice last year to direct County Administrator Jonathan Lewis to establish a new Stormwater Department, with its own director, that left only transportation issues for Public Works to handle, Lewis explained. Thus, the department name was changed.)
The Sheriff’s Office would pay for the installation and maintenance of the equipment, along with most of the other related costs, the county staff memo added.
“Automatic license plate reader (ALPR) and video surveillance camera (Camera Systems) technology has been used for many years by local law enforcement agencies,” the memo explained. “This technology works by automatically capturing digital images of vehicles moving through the view of the camera. The system then runs the license plate, in addition to other collected data, against the Florida Crime Information Center (FCIC) and National Crime Information Center (NCIC) ‘hot list’ that has been uploaded into the system multiple
times a day. This hot list consists of stolen vehicles, stolen tags, missing endangered persons, etc.,” the memo pointed out.
During Sheriff Kurt Hoffman’s June 2022 presentation of his 2023 fiscal year budget to the County Commission, he talked about ALPRs, calling them “probably the most significant piece of technology in law enforcement right now …”
Hoffman added at that time that the county’s most recent crime wave prior to his appearance before the commission that day had involved individuals from Fort Myers. Earlier in 2022, he indicated, the agency dealt with criminals from St. Petersburg who had driven into Sarasota County.
The sheriff then said that the agency was testing ALPRs, with the goal of being able to apprehend individuals suspected of having committed crimes.
Provided that the County Commission approved the interlocal agreement with the Sheriff’s Office, the Dec. 16, 2025 county memo continued, county staff would “provide access to county-maintained structures for mounting ALPR and Camera System devices and will provide the electrical connection required to operate the cameras.” The agreement itself makes it clear that the county will cover the expense of electricity for the devices.
However, the memo noted, “The County has no responsibility to maintain or repair [the equipment] and no ownership rights to the Sheriff’s ALPR and Camera System hardware.”
Nonetheless, the memo added, “The County has authority to review and approve all ALPR and Camera System installations on County-maintained structures.”
The interlocal agreement that the commissioners approved on Dec. 16, 2025 further explains, that Section 163.01 of the Florida Statutes, known as the Florida Interlocal Cooperation Act of 1969, “encourages and empowers local governments and government agencies to cooperate with one another on matters of mutual interest and advantage, and provide for interlocal agreements between local governments on matters of mutual interest …”
It adds that the installation of the ALPRs and the camera systems “on county-maintained structures will provide optimal coverage of roadways thereby enhancing public safety and providing for the efficient use of County law enforcement resources …”
The agreement does say that the Sheriff’s Office must submit a written request from the sheriff or his designee to the county engineer for any agency device to be added to a county-maintained structure. The county engineer — Spencer Anderson — then will review the request and approve it or deny it, “based on the circumstances involved with the particular structure that is the subject of the request.” The county engineer is to provide the Sheriff’s Office with a written determination regarding the request, the agreement notes.
Moreover, the agreement continues, the Sheriff’s Office must provide county staff a map “depicting the location of all SCSO devices SCSO has installed” on county-maintained structures. If county staff finds that any of the devices is hindering staff’s maintenance of a structure,” the agreement points out, the Sheriff’s Office will have to cover the expense of the removal of the equipment, plus the expense of any associated repairs.