Osceola facing growing pains
Study shows sheriff’s office struggling with turnover, strapped for bilingual deputies
While serving a Central Florida region projected to double in size over the next decade, with more than 76 percent of the growth expected in the Hispanic community, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office is struggling with high staff turnover, low salaries and a lack of bilingual deputies, according to a recent study by the University of Central Florida.
The analysis, which included interviews with at least 43 sworn and civilian employees, was commissioned by OCSO in 2017 as part of what Sheriff Russ Gibson called an “internal audit” of the agency. It was split in two parts, focusing on the organization’s challenges and the agency’s relationships with the community.
“Information is power, so we wanted this to be from an outside entity to give us a real review, as honest as they possibly could be, to show us where we were,” said Gibson, who became sheriff in January 2017.
Researchers concluded low morale at the Sheriff’s Office stemmed from a lack of incentives in comparison to competitors, including entry-level pay starting at $39,000. Other agencies in the area pay from $42,000 to $47,000
and offer salary increases over time. Osceola County has only implemented a step pay plan for EMS employees, according to the Sheriff ’s Office.
“We are working on that, to put that into our budget,” Gibson said. “It’s just very important. … We just want to be in that ballpark to attract that talent.”
Unlike the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and the Orlando Police Department, deputies in Osceola County are not unionized.
Several Osceola County commissioners did not respond or refused to comment on the needs of the Sheriff ’s Office.
UCF researchers also surveyed 378 Osceola residents as part of the study
and found most wanted to see deputies more involved in their communities. Nearly all respondents, 92 percent, said they would call Osceola deputies if they or a family member experienced a crime, according to the report. Four percent said they would not report it and 3 percent said they might.
Osceola deputies told researchers the biggest factors contributing to a high turnover rate at the agency were an “[i]ncreased workload, elevated risk levels, and the inability to take time off.”
The report cited a “noteworthy increase in calls for service” at the Osceola Sheriff’s Office, which it said is outpacing the agency’s ability to fill open positions. In 2006, there were about 11,370 monthly calls in the country. By 2017, the monthly figure had ballooned nearly 16,000 calls.
“The public demand for deputies’ time and attention is outstripping the rate of expansion within the agency,” the report said, adding deputies cited Osceola’s rising population and number of tourists “as reason for the need for a pay increase.”
Meanwhile, the agency, which employs 413 sworn deputies, had 38 vacant positions as of last year. Currently, Orange County staffs 1,696 deputies and has 92 sworn vacancies.
The report noted OCSO has a “significant number of vacant patrol positions,” a problem exacerbated by the state’s recent mandate to add school resource officers in the aftermath of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland.
“The OCSO was forced to pull deputies from other areas of the agency and move them to local schools,” the report said.
Osceola school district Superintendent Dr. Debra Pace said OCSO has assigned one school resource officer in every elementary and middle school and at least two in every high school. She said the new SROs have had a positive impact so far.
“They struggle with the same challenges I face when I’m trying to hire high-quality teachers,” she said of the Sheriff’s Office. “I know it’s a challenge for them and I understand it’s a challenge, but … they put the right people in our schools.”
The report also noted the influx of Puerto Ricans, many of whom relocated to Osceola in the aftermath of
Hurricane María in 2017 and since. The report recommended OCSO offer bilingual incentive pay and sponsor bilingual candidates in local law enforcement academies to boost its Spanish-speaking staff.
Ken Adams, a professor of Criminal Justice at UCF, said the challenge of recruiting diverse cops is a problem across law enforcement agencies, but Osceola County’s shifting demographics merit moreaggressive outreach to young candidates and recently-displaced Puerto Ricans with a background in law enforcement.
“To some extent their situation is being aggravated by growth; it’s also being aggravated by more Spanishspeaking people,” Adams said. “A lot of times, you can offset lower salary and some of the working conditions with a demonstration that, ‘we really want you to come here. We really want you to join us.’”
Rev. José Rodriguez, who works with the Kissimmeebased Episcopal Office for Latino Assistance, said he is concerned that increasing the number of bilingual deputies may not be enough to improve trust between law enforcement and Central Florida Hispanics.
“I feel that they genuinely want to do community outreach, community policing and I feel that many of their deputies are Latinos,” Rodriguez said. “But you also have to be truthful that the community … they’ve been victims of injustice, and they’ve been victim of policing gone wrong.”