The Sheriff’s Office is asking the Ponte Vedra Municipal Service District for a five percent per year increase in the amount the district pays for additional deputies.

Currently the district pays $250,064 to the Sheriff for extra deputies to patrol the district, which encompasses most of the area east of A1A in Ponte Vedra. Wednesday night, Sheriff David Shoar told the district’s board that the actual cost to his office for the additional coverage is more than $400,000.

The disctrict’s trustees asked the Sheriff if he would consider accepting a compromise — a three and a half percent increase per year for three years.

Trustee John Wegl told Shoar, "We are relying on the same source of revenue as you are — taxpayers."

Unfortunately, Wegl is right. The extra police coverage inside the Municipal Service District is being paid for by the same people who fund the rest of the Sheriff’s Office’s operations: St. Johns County taxpayers, including those that live outside the district.

Taxpayers from the parts of Ponte Vedra west and south of the Municipal Service District are paying for residents in the district to have better police coverage. So are taxpayers from Julington Creek, St. Augustine and even Hastings. If you subtract the $250,000 that the district pays for the extra deputies from the $400,000 it actually costs the county, that leaves $150,000 that must be paid by taxpayers outside the Ponte Vedra Municipal Service District.

Does an extra $150,000 worth of police coverage inside the district mean that somewhere else in the county residents are seeing fewer patrol cars and deputies than they pay for? How can it not?

Several of the district’s trustees have said they want better accountability from the Sheriff’s Office, so they can be sure the district is getting what it pays for, and they’re right to demand that accountability.

But, district residents and taxpayers should also be demanding accountability from the board of trustees — and the Sheriff. Has the additional protection made a difference? Is the Municipal Service District safer than the rest of Ponte Vedra? Have the additional deputies resulted in fewer crimes?

The rest of the county should hold to the Sheriff accountable for providing additional service to the county’s wealthiest district at the expense of the rest of the county.

That’s not class envy. If the district wants additional police protection, and has the money to pay for it, no one in the county should complain.

But, the key is, the district should be paying for it — not the rest of the county. The Sheriff was right to ask for an increase from the Municipal Service District, and he should have asked for more. He was wrong when he said he was willing to negotiate. He serves — and protects — the entire county, and sharecroppers in Hastings should not have to subsidize Ponte Vedra Beach.

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