Taylor County’s overpaid constitutional officers

While we’re on the topic of budgetary deficits and raising taxes on citizens in Taylor County, I figured it would be appropriate to share some data from the Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research.

I’ve attached a report of all county constitutional officer salaries in Taylor County from the 1985-1986 fiscal year all the way up to the current fiscal year.

It’s worth noting that in the 2023-2024 fiscal year both the Tax Collector and Sheriff received massive salary increases of 27.7% and 22.5%, respectively. The Sheriff also received a similar raise in 2021-2022 to the tune of about 19.9%. I don’t know about you, but in my line of work, raises are earned through exceptional performance. I cannot recall anything noteworthy happening in those offices in recent years to warrant such significant raises in salary.

Some state monies make their way down to the local level for these purposes, but it doesn’t cover it all. A large portion comes directly from the county’s coffers which, according to the April 11 edition of the Perry News-Herald, is anticipating a $3.3 million deficit.

After commissioners called upon the county’s five constitutional officers to make an effort to reduce their budgets, the sheriff told commissioners to raise taxes on citizens and “blame him," making it clear that he had no desire to make such cuts. At the same meeting, the sheriff suggested that any budgetary cuts would only result in position eliminations.

To add some further context, let’s compare our numbers to data from another Florida county. The Office of Economic and Demographic Research also publishes county population estimates in addition to constitutional officers’ salaries. According to this data, the population of Levy County is just over double that of Taylor County and their sheriff makes just $10,223 more than our sheriff. Shouldn’t the Taylor County Sheriff have about half the salary of the Levy County Sheriff based on population density alone?

Perhaps our elected constitutional officers should look towards cutting their own salaries before cutting jobs and hiking taxes on the people in this community. Especially those constitutional officers who have received astronomical salary increases without performance to match.

In stark comparison, when facing rising utility rates in 2019, some city council members (including my father) offered to cut their salaries by 50% to offset the impact to citizens. And ultimately, Councilman Deming was the only one to actually do so. If only our county leaders had similar mindsets…

All data and information below can be found at edr.state.fl.us and perrynewspapers.com.