There’s nothing wrong with Sheriff Eric Flowers campaigning hard for his proposed $93.5 million budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year – a spending plan he claims is necessary to properly compensate, retain and hire deputies charged with providing the level of law enforcement we desire in our growing county.
Indeed, those who’ve attended his recent presentations throughout our community say Flowers and his supporting cast put on quite a show, making a compelling case for what would be an increase of nearly $15 million over the Sheriff’s Office’s current budget.
But there’s something about the full-court press Flowers has been employing against the County Commission that should make you cringe, or at least wince.
Because it’s not fair.
All five commissioners are fierce law-and-order champions who respect, support and care about the well-being of the sheriff’s deputies. Two of them, in fact, have proudly worn the agency’s badge.
Chairman Joe Flescher served as a deputy here for a decade after an earlier stint with the New York Police Department. Vice Chairman Deryl Loar spent 12 years as our sheriff before retiring from law enforcement in 2021.
Both of them – as do the three other commissioners, including Joe Earman, who devoted 35 years of his life to protecting our community as a firefighter and paramedic – want to see Flowers’ deputies paid salaries that are competitive with other law-enforcement agencies on the Treasure Coast.
But that’s not the picture Flowers is painting as he implements his carefully crafted and obviously calculated marketing strategy to win the commission’s approval of the 18.5-percent increase he’s seeking in his proposed budget.
In a three-minute video he has posted on the Sheriff’s Office’s website and social-media platforms, Flowers creates a false narrative, implying that the commissioners need to be convinced that his deputies are underpaid.
“We need your help to get this budget across the finish line,” Flowers says in the video, throughout which he reminds viewers that the county continues to lose deputies to better-paying law-enforcement agencies in neighboring communities.
He also shamelessly appeals to the back-the-blue sentiment in our heavily conservative county, saying, “It’s time we take care of the folks who take care of us.”
The video closes with the words, “Contact your commissioners today and ask them to support our first responders,” followed by a green-and-white screen containing the names, phone numbers and email addresses of each of the five elected officials who will decide the fate of Flowers’ budget proposal.
Clearly, the sheriff wants county residents to put pressure on the commissioners before their public budget hearings this summer. He’s essentially telling us: “If you support law enforcement, you’ll support my budget.”
That’s a sales pitch that is sure to resonate with some in our community.
What’s troubling, though, is the subliminal message Flowers wants us to deliver to the commissioners: “If you don’t support the sheriff’s budget, you don’t support law enforcement.”
That’s a ridiculous and twisted inference, and Flowers knows it.
The sheriff also knows that, if the commissioners continue to embrace the county’s past fiscal responsibility, his proposed budget was dead on arrival – because the only way to fund it would be to raise property taxes.
Remember, Flowers has been here before:
- He proposed a $71 million budget for 2022-23, requesting an 18.27-percent increase that would’ve been the largest jump in 20 years. After negotiations with the county administrator’s staff, he agreed to a $67.25 million budget, accepting a 12.1-percent increase ($7.25 million) that included funding for 29 additional full-time employees.
- His 2023-24 request sought a 12.4-percent increase ($8.3 million), but he settled for an 8.7-percent jump that amounted to $5.9 million and a $73.1 million budget.
- He requested an 11.9-percent increase for 2024-25, which would have brought in an additional $8.8 million and raised the budget to $83.75 million. Eventually, though, he accepted a 6.5-percent hike ($4.8 million) that limited his spending to the current $78.9 million.
In his 2025-26 presentation, Flowers raised the possibility of the commission raising the county’s millage rate – which is currently at $3.55 for every $1,000 of taxable property value – to fund his proposed budget.
He stated that the commission could generate $14 million in additional revenue by increasing the millage rate by only 50 cents, or raise it to $1 and take in $28 million.
That’s not going to happen.
Both of the commission’s former law-enforcement officers – the two you’d expect to be most sympathetic to the sheriff’s proposal – flatly rejected Flowers’ suggestion and provided an alternative.
Flescher and Loar both said there’s no need to add to the financial struggles of already overburdened county taxpayers, who are contending with higher costs in almost every aspect of their lives, when the sheriff could fund his proposed pay increases by cutting spending in other areas of his budget.
“I want the best for the men and women who protect and serve our community, but I will not support an increase to the millage rate,” said Flescher, who is in his fifth term as a commissioner.
“Our citizens are looking at rising insurance rates, higher costs at the grocery store and an uncertain economy – and many of them are seniors on a fixed income,” he added. “And now we, as commissioners, are being asked to raise the millage rate?
“How do we do that?”
They don’t.
County Administrator John Titkanich said last week he had met with the sheriff twice to discuss his proposal, adding that they planned to meet again before the commission’s July 9 budget workshop.
“I’ve shared some of the red flags I came across and explained my concerns,” Titkanich said.
“Last year, I told him these annual increases of $5 million are financially unsustainable, and I’m saying the same now. Our meetings have been very cordial, but he understands where I am.
“So he’s going to meet with the commissioners and talk to his people, and we’re going to meet again,” he added. “But when 53 percent of the budget goes to the Sheriff’s Office, it makes it difficult to fund the rest of the county.”
Assuming the commissioners don’t cave on the millage rate – Indian River has the seventh-lowest property-tax rate among Florida’s 67 counties – a projected-but-still-to-be-finalized 7.62-percent increase in property values is expected to generate an additional $7.5 million in revenues.
In Flowers’ proposed budget, $9 million of the additional $15 million he’s seeking would cover the costs of across-the-board pay increases for deputies and civilian staffers.
The starting annual salary for entry-level deputies would jump 22 percent – from $50,618 to $61,585 – and bring their pay more in line with their counterparts in St. Lucie ($58,900) and Martin ($62,100) counties.
Loar endorses Flowers’ efforts to give his deputies raises, but he believes the sheriff’s proposed budget offers areas where capital expenses and other expenditures can be reduced or delayed.
Once the sheriff’s budget has been approved – it appears unlikely Flowers will get much more than a $5 million increase – state law allows him to use the money in any way he sees fit.
“The X-factor is me being on the commission,” Loar said. “I led that agency for 12 years, constructing and managing budgets through a recession. If anybody knows this process better than our county administrator, it’s me. And I know this budget can be cut.
“If you’re given an additional $5 million, coupled with cutting expenses and capital, you should be able to take care of your people and still fund the rest of your agency.”
Loar then echoed Flescher’s concern for the citizenry, saying the commission can’t ignore what’s happening in the local economy – building permits are down, home sales are slowing, and homeowner’s insurance rates are still too high – or in Tallahassee, where some state legislators want to double the homestead exemption and cut taxes.
He said the commissioners “wouldn’t be doing our job” if they approved Flowers’ proposed budget amid so much uncertainty.
“Why would we aggravate the situation by raising taxes?” Loar said. “The sheriff’s budget should be about needs, not wants. But he’s selling the feel-good stuff, and the feel-good stuff is expensive.
“Again, I’m 100-percent for paying the deputies, but there’s a way to make it happen without raising taxes,” he added. “If we raise the millage rate to satisfy one constitutional officer, we’ve opened Pandora’s Box.
“I’m not going to do it.”
As for Flowers’ unprecedented all-out campaign to get his budget approved, Loar called it “unorthodox,” especially for a sheriff who less than a year ago was elected to a second term despite being rejected by nearly two-thirds of the voters in his Republican primary.
“He’s got people out all over the county, and I’m sure he’ll try to rally people to the budget hearing, but he would have been better off speaking to the commissioners first,” Loar said.
“I can tell you: The budget our administrator is presenting is fair,” he added. “The numbers in Eric’s budget don’t justify what he’s asking for.”
That’s entirely fitting.
Flowers desire to get the budget he’s asking for doesn’t justify the tactics he has employed to squeeze the commissioners.
Like the numbers, the strong-arm approach won’t work, either.
