Sheriff Eric Flowers was at it again last week, knowing it was already too late to convince the County Commission to give him the additional funding he claims he needs to provide effective law enforcement for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
So why bother?
He wants to punish the commissioners for their refusal to bow to his budget demand by turning public opinion against them – especially Chairman Joe Flescher and Vice Chairman Deryl Loar, both of whom will be up for re-election next year.
Why else call an entirely unnecessary Friday morning press conference and resume his take-no-prisoners verbal assault on commissioners’ rejection of the ridiculous $94.3 million budget he initially proposed?
As petty as it sounds, Flowers appeared to be throwing a tantrum, continuing to push a politically concocted narrative that our commissioners don’t care about public safety.
“They seem to forget how important law enforcement is,” the sheriff said.
That’s blatantly false, of course, and Flowers knows it – just as he knows the commission cannot change the property-tax rate it unanimously approved last month.
But the commissioners, rather than risk crippling the county’s finances, have allowed our media-savvy sheriff to paint them as the villains in their budget battle.
“We did what we could do with what was available to us,” Flescher said last weekend, “without overburdening the taxpayers.”
In other words, the commissioners acted responsibly, courageously standing up to sometimes-hostile attempts by the second-term sheriff to bully them – and Flowers should be grateful they did.
Think about it: How would the community have responded if the commission had meekly caved to Flowers’ demand for a $14.6 million budget increase?
Imagine the public reaction if the commissioners, instead of challenging Flowers’ deputies-need-big-raises spending plan and approving only a $6.8 million increase, had flipped the script and put the onus for a considerable tax increase on the sheriff, telling us:
“As stewards of your tax dollars, we directed our county administrator to present us with a fiscally conservative budget, one that didn’t require any increase in the millage rate. We know these are trying economic times. The sheriff, however, says we must drastically increase his budget to ensure his agency’s ability to adequately protect our community.
“Since the first responsibility of government is public safety, we’re left with no choice but to give the sheriff every penny he says he needs. You elected him. You put the safety of our county in his hands. You trust he knows what he’s doing. Who are we to question your decision, judgment and trust?
“To satisfy the sheriff, though, we must raise your property taxes by hundreds – and, in some cases, thousands – of dollars to cover the costs of the budget. We don’t want to do it, nor do we believe it’s necessary. But he says our community will be ravaged by crime if we don’t. So when your tax bills arrive in November, remember the reason you’re paying more.”
To be sure, the above scenario was never going to happen.
The commission voted unanimously last month to retain the county’s millage rate – $3.55 per $1,000 of assessed property value – for the sixth consecutive year, ending any realistic chance Flowers would get anything close to the increase he sought in his original proposal.
In fact, Flowers already has lowered his requested increase to $12.2 million, which would still require the commissioners to gut the county’s $600 million overall budget, resulting in further staffing cuts, reduced services and the postponement of much-needed projects.
“No way we were going to approve anything like that,” Flescher said, explaining that the county’s population includes many seniors who, because they live alone and on fixed incomes, would see their finances severely strained by an unnecessary tax increase.
“We answer to the county as a whole, and we have a great concern for people in need,” he added. “Increased costs are impacting everyone, and I believe more people are struggling than are not.
“Hypothetically, we could’ve raised the millage rate to give the sheriff what he wanted, but there was absolutely no interest in doing that.”
For those who don’t know: The sheriff suggested in his budget proposal that a pro-law-enforcement commission could generate the funds needed to cover his requested increase by raising the millage rate.
Even with the rate unchanged, though, county homeowners will pay more in taxes because the assessed value of their properties has increased. Those increases are expected to generate an additional $8.68 million in revenue for the county.
As you might’ve guessed, Flowers also wants as much of THAT money as he can get.
Still, it’s the commission that seems to be absorbing the brunt of the public criticism during its budget workshops and on local social-media platforms.
“We’re taking the heat because of the optics created by the sheriff,” Flescher said, referring to Flowers’ remarks that the county will become “Detroit” and need to close libraries and parks for safety reasons if his budget isn’t fully funded.
“You saw the way he conducted himself at the workshop – slamming doors, shouting, saying he was done with us,” he added. “The theatrics were way over the top. But people are noticing that, too.”
Flescher, a former deputy now serving his fifth term, contends the commission has more support in this dispute than it might appear, based on his daily interactions with community members, many of whom he said embrace the panel’s fiscally sensible positions.
It was shamefully obvious at the commission’s July 9 budget hearing that Flowers had packed the chamber with members of the deputies’ union and other allies to create the illusion of overwhelming support.
Then, the union took the fight to Flescher last month, demanding in writing that he offer a public apology for casting doubt on claims from the public-comment podium that some entry-level deputies – who earn $50,600 per year plus overtime – needed to supplement their incomes with government benefits.
The union’s letter accused Flescher of being insensitive to the financial struggles of Sheriff’s Office employees.
Last week, former sheriff and commissioner Gary Wheeler – who cared so much about our county that he moved to Tennessee more than a decade ago – curiously entered the fray, penning another letter criticizing Flescher’s remarks.
It was mere coincidence, perhaps, that both letters made headlines in an online publication run by one of Flowers’ most-devoted, local-media lapdogs.
The resulting stories, though, didn’t bother to mention that the commission had given Flowers nearly $22 million in budget increases across the past four years – just under $19 million over the last three – with the understanding that a sizable chunk of those funds would go toward pay raises for deputies.
They also failed to explain that Flowers had funneled most of the pay-raise money to the agency’s upper echelon, including sergeants and lieutenants, rather than incrementally increasing the starting salary for agency’s new deputies.
In addition, the story detailing Wheeler’s remarks about Flescher never addressed the longstanding ill feelings between them.
Such pesky details, however, would have put a noticeable dent in the sheriff’s pitch to the commission – and without having to contend with all the pertinent facts, Flowers’ supporters rallied to the cause, flooding the social-media page with comments endorsing his position and defending his behavior.
The one-sided stories were not surprising, however, given the author and Flowers have spent time together socially, even enjoying a pleasure cruise to the Bahamas with their wives in May.
Nor was it unexpected that, during the press conference, that same author dutifully asked Flowers about the controversy swirling around County Administrator John Titkanich, who, according to an audit report, gave himself an unauthorized raise earlier this year.
The question teed up an opening for Flowers to announce to the news media that the county comptroller’s audit report had spurred a “criminal investigation” – something he and the deputies’ union may have used at this week’s budget hearing, which was scheduled for this past Wednesday.
It didn’t matter that case was not being handled by the Sheriff’s Office, or that no criminal investigation was in progress. The FDLE is conducting a preliminary inquiry to determine if further investigation is needed.
Certainly, questions about Titkanich’s raise put the commissioners in a tough spot, presenting Flowers’ team with an opportunity to say: “You have enough money to give annual salary increases to your administrator and attorney, but you can’t afford to better pay our deputies?”
Not that Flowers, who seized upon the month-old arrests last month of two after-hours intruders at the County Administration Buildings, needed much help from his media buddies.
“The press conference wasn’t about the burglaries,” Loar said last weekend. “It was about the budget, and it was about the administrator.”
Loar, who served 12 years as our sheriff before retiring from law enforcement in January 2021 and successfully running for a commission seat in 2022, said the press conference was timed and staged to put the commission in a bad light – and bolster Flowers’ case for more funding.
Both Loar and Flescher said they noticed Friday morning that a crime-scene van and deputy’s cruiser were parked in front of Building A, which contains the commissioners’ offices, at the County Administration Complex in Vero Beach.
Flowers’ press conference began at 11 a.m. on the Sheriff’s Office campus.
“He knew the TV crews, after hearing there was a criminal investigation, would go right over to the County Administration Complex – and he made sure the props were there for them to see,” Loar said.
“Why else does he hold that press conference?” he added. “The Friday before our budget hearing? For a couple of burglaries? A month after they occurred? The whole thing was orchestrated.”
Loar noticed something else about the press conference: Flowers said nothing about taking his case to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has the authority to override the commission’s decision on the sheriff’s budget.
Could it be because Flowers knows the governor, who has created Florida’s version of federal Department of Government Efficiency, would almost certainly require an audit of the sheriff’s spending during his first term?
“Eric doesn’t want to go there,” Loar said.
What if the governor learned that Flowers, during a July 8 meeting with Titkanich, had agreed to settle for a $7 million budget increase, only to withdraw the offer later in the day?
Or that the increase the commission has approved – up from the $4.7 million in the budget first presented by Titkanich – would still allow Flowers to give his deputies across-the-board $9,000 pay raises?
“He was never negotiating to reach a settlement,” Flescher said. “He was only articulating his demands, and at his price.”
His price, however, was unreasonable.
So Flowers has a choice: He can appeal to the governor, or rise above the budget rancor, make the most of the money he gets and be the sheriff he was elected to be.
The commissioners did their job.
He needs to do his.
