For 16 years, the Broward Sheriff’s Office has provided police and fire services to Cooper City. But there’s a chance that the city could be forced to look to one of its neighbors for protection now that the sheriff is threatening to end its service.
The 15-year contract between Cooper City and Sheriff’s Office expired exactly a year ago and for the better part of a year, the two sides have been hammering out a new deal during this transition period. The yearlong transition period ended at the end of the day Wednesday.
The way Cooper City Mayor Greg Ross sees it, everything was coming along on course for a new contract when last week Sheriff Greg Tony sent the city a letter threatening to end all services.
Broward has 31 cities, and the Sheriff’s Office serves about half of them, in addition to the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Port Everglades.
The sheriff’s letter accuses Cooper City of not bargaining in good faith. It arrived after both sides had agreed to a $24 million-a-year contract for the next five years, Ross said. All that was left was for both sides to sign off on it. The contract represents 73% of the city’s budget.
One side did sign off Tuesday night when the Cooper City Council met and unanimously agreed to the terms of the contract. After the vote, Ross signed the contract and sent it over to the Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday morning.
It’s unclear what the sheriff and his team of negotiators will do now. Sheriff’s spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright said in an email that the sheriff’s command staff had not yet addressed the matter. She did not respond to questions if the sheriff was available for comment.
.At issue is a $2 million tab needed for the police and firefighters’ pensions during the transition period. There is no mention of that current $2 million tab in the current contract. But Tony, according to his letter, would like that addressed in the contract.
When the Sheriff’s Office absorbed the duties of police and fire protection — something it had asked if it could do — the city’s police officers and firefighters essentially went to work for the Sheriff’s Office.
Some, though, wanted to keep their city pensions and not be part of the state’s retirement system, which the Sheriff’s Office is part of.
Under the old contract, the Sheriff’s Office paid the pension funds of those transferred officers and firefighters. Under the new contract, Cooper City has agreed to do that.
What no one has agreed upon is a $2 million tab accumulated over the course of the year to pay for future pensions. Ross said both sides agreed on the contract but opted to keep working out a deal with the $2 million pension tab.
“All terms in the contract were discussed and thoroughly vetted and agreed to by both parties. The signing is a mere formality as far as I am concerned,” Ross said. “It’s a head-scratcher because we were all on the same page.”
Not so, says the sheriff in his letter.
Ross said he doesn’t want to turn to his neighbors such as Davie for police and fire services, and he says he is willing to foot the $2 million bill — temporarily. Governments are required to fund pension funds, and so if Cooper City does absorb the bill, Ross said he is determined to get the money back from the Sheriff’s Office either through mediation, arbitration or at the very least litigation.
“One way or another, we will get that money back,” Ross said. “I prefer any other method other than litigation.”
He said Wednesday he was stunned to see the letter from Tony. “It was unnecessary and unwarranted.”
Ross said the city abided by the terms of the contract — its monthly payments for services — during this yearlong transition period while a new contract was being worked out and the Sheriff’s Office should do the same by footing the pension tab.
“Your offer to settle the pension issue was for the taxpayers of Broward County to provide a $2 million windfall to the City of Cooper City. Such an offer is completely unacceptable,” Tony wrote.
In the letter, Tony said the pension matter must be solved and if there is no contract in the next 30 days, the services will be paired back significantly and could eventually end all together.
Eileen Kelley can be reached at 772-925-9193 or ekelley@sunsentinel.com. Follow on Twitter @ reporterkell.
