INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — A year after Sheriff’s Office employees got a $1,000 bonus in lieu of raises from retiring Sheriff Roy Raymond, current Sheriff Deryl Loar is expected to give at least some of them a bigger bonus, as much as $1,600 each.

It’s the product of an unusual situation, sheriff’s Comptroller Harry Hall said Monday. He said he expects to have $747,000 unspent at the end of the month.

Some of the savings, he said, came from budgeting $3.48 per gallon last fall for patrol cars’ gasoline and seeing prices drop to $1 less. And there haven’t been as many jail inmates hospitalized, he added.

“It’s like the planets all lined up,” Hall said. “It’s unrealistic to think this can continue (in future years).”

In a 5-0 vote Monday, the County Commission gave Loar the authority to issue the bonuses instead of returning the unspent money to the county general fund as has been the usual practice. Loar’s employees are not getting raises this year.

Commissioners started to deal with the issue Thursday, when they met to resolve a broader contract impasse between Loar and the unionized deputies. But with Hall absent on a scheduled medical leave, Loar and agency attorney Jim Harpring couldn’t say how much would be available for bonuses. Commissioners postponed the item until Hall could address it.

“They had no idea Thursday they had any money left, and now they’re talking three-quarters of a million,” said Mike Scudiero, spokesman for the Coastal Florida Police Benevolent Association.

Loar said he expects to give out bonuses of $1,582, less any withholding, to the 150 patrol deputies. If he can, he said, he also aims to give the same to the 170 non-union corrections officers, detectives and higher-ranking patrol officers, as well as $1,446 to full-time civilian employees and $690 to part-time employees.

Most county employees are going into the new budget without raises, if they’re not being laid off. Scudiero said sheriff’s deputies risk their lives and should get the extra money. It might help deputies pay expenses, such as day care, he said, now that commissioners agreed Thursday with letting Loar change patrol shifts to 10 hours.

Sheriffs typically have given the unspent portion of their budgets back to the County Commission’s general fund at the end of the year. Hall said Raymond handed out the first bonuses last year in appreciation to employees for going without raises and working with him for eight years.

Rose Spytek, vice president of the county Taxpayers’ Association, said Loar should return his unspent money to the commission.

“Perhaps a few of the employees that were laid off could be hired back in other departments,” she said. “The deputies were hired to do shift work. We believe that with so many furloughs and layoffs locally they should not receive bonuses because of an administrative decision to change to 10-hour shifts. They are not losing their jobs or their 40-hour weeks.”

Bonuses

The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office returned the following unspent amounts to the County Commission at the end of the budget years:

2000 — $505,097

2001 — $119,057

2002 — $546,210

2003 — $520,640

2004 — $5 (after hurricane recovery expenses)

2005 — $941,302

2006 — $756,637 (less $195,750 for a new generator)

2007 — $737,569 (less $435,729 for 21 new patrol cars)

2008 — $12,826 (after giving bonuses of more than $589,000)

Source: Sheriff’s Comptroller Harry Hall

Henry A. Stephens

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