The budget battle between the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office and Miami-Dade County has another notch.
Mayor Daniella Levine Cava is pushing back after Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz announced she is ending the program that provides security and transportation for the mayor and county commissioners
Two letters, sent hours apart, now lay bare an escalating dispute between Miami-Dade’s sheriff and county leaders.
In the first letter, Cordero-Stutz announced the Sergeant-at-Arms program will end next month, stating it costs taxpayers about $4.1 million a year and arguing eliminating it will help address what she calls a budget shortfall caused by the county’s adopted budget.
Hours later, Levine Cava fired back, calling the move a significant security challenge and pointing to recent violence against elected officials in Minnesota.
She also pushed back on the sheriff’s funding claims. In her letter, the mayor noted the county approved a 1$.23 billion budget for the sheriff’s office this year, the largest in its history.
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The fight stems from a broader budget dispute.
The sheriff requested about $42 million more than what the mayor recommended, but county commissioners rejected the request.
The decision to eliminate the program was already part of the sheriff’s public message on government spending.
One day before sending the letter, Cordero-Stutz appeared alongside Gov. Ron DeSantis at a roundtable promoting Amendment 3, the proposed property tax measure. There, she argued government should take a hard look at its spending before asking taxpayers for more money
“An expense should never go unquestioned simply because that is what government has always paid for,” she said. “I take seriously both my responsibility to protect this community and my responsibility to spend its money wisely.”
The mayor is also asking the sheriff to provide a detailed transition plan before the program ends next month.
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