Kelly Hayes
The Senate is granting a $1 million allocation for a police pursuit training facility for the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office in its latest Criminal and Civil Justice budget offer to the House.
On Tuesday morning, the House pushed the Senate to set aside nearly $5 million for the appropriation, according to the first House Criminal and Civil Justice budget offer. While the upper chamber didn’t give way completely, it did budge quite a bit with the $1 million offer.
The $4.89 million appropriation, excluded in the Senate’s original budget, is detailed in appropriation requests (SF 2511, HB 2991) filed by Sen. Ed Hooper and Rep. Linda Chaney, respectively. According to the request, the funding would be used “to design and construct a police pursuit driver training facility,” which the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office does not currently have.
The money from the state would account for the whole of the project, according to the request.
Although the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office has recorded fewer than 10 vehicle pursuits per year since 2016, according to the Tampa Bay Times, the training center’s purpose is to improve the safe operation of local police vehicles. The office saw a substantial drop in its number of pursuits after Sheriff Bob Gualitieri implemented a policy in 2013 that only allowed officers to pursue a chase if the driver had committed a forcible felony like murder or kidnapping. For reference, the office reported 134 pursuits in 2012.
However, in addition to training law enforcement officers, the facility would also be available for citizen courses in safe driving techniques, including the county’s Teen Driving Challenge, Targeted Response Against Distracted Driving and the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office Citizen’s Academy.
In 2021, Pinellas County reported 85 pedestrian and bicyclist deaths, doubling its 2020 rate despite the national and state numbers remaining steady year-to-year. The last time the county had reported a number that high was more than 15 years ago. According to the Tampa Bay Times, on average, the county reports 51 deaths of pedestrians and bicyclists each year.
According to the request, the facility would hope to reduce the number of pursuits that result in crashes and the number of pursuits that result in increased apprehensions. It also hopes to provide an overall reduction in the number of agency at-fault crashes and improved response times to high-priority calls.
The facility would be available for use by at least nine other law enforcement agencies in Pinellas County.
The House Criminal and Civil Justice budget offer also included a $500,000 allocation for the Pinellas/Pasco County Youth Advocate Program, which was also excluded in the original Senate budget plan. However, the Senate approved the appropriation in its offer to the House released Tuesday evening.
The appropriation (SF 1005, HB 2793), filed by Sen. Darryl Rouson and Rep. Nick DiCeglie, would be directed to the Youth Advocate Program (YAP). The program provides support services to help as many as 100 Pinellas and Pasco County high-risk youth who are involved or at-risk within the juvenile justice system. The program helps participants avoid detention and institutional placement and live productively in their homes, according to the request.
The state funding would make up nearly 90% of the budget for the program, according to the request. The remainder is provided by $65,680 in private donors.
