Commission authorizes $3.506 million contract renewal with Pinellas County Sheriff's Office

The City Commission authorized the city manager to execute an interlocal agreement with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office for law-enforcement services for the period Oct. 1, 2025, through Sept. 30, 2026, at a cost of $3,506,472. Adam Poyer, assistant city manager, described the contract renewal and said the agreement traces to the city's 2013 move from a municipal force to a contract with the sheriff's office under the Florida Interlocal Cooperation Act. He said the current staffing model for St. Pete Beach under the agreement includes 10 patrol deputies, four sergeants and two community-policing deputies, with access to detectives, 9-1-1 communications and other countywide resources. Poyer said staff evaluated budget impacts and implemented two cost-saving adjustments to keep the contract within the city's budget: reducing community-policing deputies from three to two and lowering the cap on secondary (off-duty) employment allocation from $250,000 to $150,000. He said the two changes together reduced projected costs from about $3.7 million to just over $3.5 million and produced a marginal year-over-year increase of about 0.05 percent (roughly $1,800) compared with the current year. Pinellas County Sheriff Chris Gutierrez told the commission the county arrangement provides surge capacity and economies of scale that the city's prior municipal department could not match and stressed flexibility in staffing across peak tourist and event periods. Commissioners raised neighborhood-level concerns about visibility, ordinance enforcement and coordination with code enforcement. Sheriff Gutierrez and Poyer said deputies had been directed to track ordinance contacts, and Gutierrez reported 1,855 hours of directed patrol during July 2024'1/07/2025, producing 55 citations and approximately 1,300 warnings; 16 repeat offenders were identified in those documented contacts. The commission voted unanimously to authorize the city manager to execute the interlocal agreement in the amount stated. The contract includes standard annual cancellation language and automatic short-term continuations if the parties do not renew.