PACA - Pasco Alliance of Community Associations

We continue to move the Sheriff’s Office forward as one of the most professional law enforcement and detention agencies in the state. The Pasco Sheriff’s Office is both state and nationally accredited in both its corrections and law enforcement operations.

During my tenure as Sheriff, there have never been more deputies on Pasco roads patrolling our communities and answering your calls to help keep you and your family safe. In 2006, road patrol deputies across the county answered more than 171,000 citizen-generated calls for service, about 7 percent more than the previous year. However, response times to calls for service have been steadily reduced, nearly 42 percent since 2000 for possible life-threatening calls. The average response time for 2006's most dangerous Priority One calls was 6.3 minutes. All citizen-generated calls for service totaled more than 218,000 in 2006. This does not include traffic stops, which totaled more than 47,000 last year, equal to about one to every seven residents.

We have also been effective in the fiscal management of your Sheriff’s Office, by keeping the cost of operating the agency down while increasing services. The Pasco Sheriff’s Office is the 6 ^th largest law enforcement agency in the state in terms of population served. However, our law enforcement services are provided at the lowest cost per person out of the 13 largest agencies in the state. That totals only $144 per person in our jurisdiction (which includes the Penny for Pasco tax), while the average cost for the other large agencies in the state is about $305 per person. In addition, the Pasco Sheriff’s Office’s portion of the overall county budget has steadily shrank over the years, from a total of 11.25 percent in the 1998-99 budget year, to less than 8 percent for the current 2007-08 fiscal year. Our 2006 crime rate was also one of the lowest out of the largest agencies in the state.

The Pasco Sheriff’s Office operates the two detention facilities in the county and we have initiated a number of programs designed to save taxpayer’s dollars and give inmates a productive way to spend their court sentences. These include:

· Our agriculture program where inmates have raised tons of produce that is utilized in our food needs at the jail;

· Our aquaculture project where inmates have harvested thousands of pounds of catfish, which is also used in our jail food system;

· Our hydroponics program where inmates harvest produce every 21 days without the use of soil, which ensures a quick and easy way to lower our food costs even more;

· Contracts with two state agencies where our female and male inmates pick up trash alongside the roadway and participate in other road beautification projects;

· Housing federal inmates in the Land O’ Lakes Detention Center, which, since 2001, has reimbursed more than $6.28 million to the county.

My staff and I will continue our hard work to keep the Pasco Sheriff’s Office one of the best law enforcement agencies in the state. We have laid the foundation for this through increased professionalism of our members, sound fiscal management and an increase and improvement of services. With your support, we can continue to be a model for the rest of the state to follow.

Sheriff's Office receives national accreditation

Pasco Sheriff Bob White is pleased to announce that the Pasco Sheriff’s Office received national accreditation through the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc. (CALEA) November 22, 2003, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Of the 444 CALEA standards, the agency complied with all of the 328 mandatory standards and 78 of the non-mandatory standards. This was accomplished within one year of receiving state accreditation along with CALEA recognition in November 2002.

The Pasco Sheriff’s Office was the first agency in the nation to move from CALEA recognition through alliance to full accreditation.

"A lot of hard work and dedication to detail were required throughout the process" said Sheriff White. "Our goal was to be awarded with national law enforcement accreditation by the end of this year. It took an unbelievable amount of work by many agency members to accomplish this, which was made possible by completing two on-site reviews within a two-year period. This demonstrates the dedication of our members for our agency to achieve such a high level of professionalism. Only 25 percent of our country's law enforcement officers serve in a nationally accredited agency."

The process continues as agencies are reviewed every three years by assessors from around the country. The Pasco Sheriff’s Office has now received its professional accreditation for both law enforcement and corrections at both the state and national level.

Sheriff Bob White appointed by
Governor Jeb Bush for state council

Governor Jeb Bush recently announced his appointment of Pasco Sheriff Bob White to the Violent Crime and Drug Control Council during a press conference at the state capital building in Tallahassee. The VCDC develops and implements initiatives to combat violent crime, drug trafficking and money laundering in Florida.

Since its creation in 1993, the Council has funded the investigation of 155 violent crime cases, 48 major drug trafficking and money laundering cases, as well as 124 victim/witness protection and relocation cases. The Council has spent $8.4 million combating violent crime since its inception.

The 14-member Council meets quarterly to review requests for case specific funding from law enforcement agencies across the state. The funding provided from the Council is geared to offset costs or otherwise reinforce expenditures by specific agencies.

The Council provided $100,000 last year to help fund the Pasco County-based drug sting operation Bahama Breeze. Coordinated by the Pasco Sheriff's Office, this operation netted 24 local arrests this year and stopped what authorities believe was at least 45-pounds of cocaine a month being smuggled into central Florida from the Bahamas.