Miami-Dade County Florida Sheriff: Agency's Funding Not Enough in Mayor's Proposed Budget

Miami-Dade County’s sheriff says the mayor’s proposed 7% increase in tax funding for law enforcement won’t be enough to keep the public safe.

Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz warned county commissioners on Wednesday that Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s proposed budget doesn’t have enough money for law enforcement and urged them to approve the $93 million funding boost requested by the Sheriff’s Office.

“Anything less is defunding the police,” she said.

While Cordero-Stutz asked commissioners for more funding, she was silent on whether property-tax rates should go higher to pay more for public safety.

After she spoke, commissioners voted overwhelmingly to accept Levine Cava’s recommendations to keep property-tax rates flat for now, ahead of a final decision in September. Commissioner Roberto Gonzalez, who is advocating for lower tax rates, was the lone no vote for the flat rates.

Levine Cava’s budget is based on flat tax rates, but commissioners could have voted to mandate a reduction by setting a lower cap on rates. With a flat cap, commissioners can still vote to lower rates in September, but state rules make it harder for them to approve a higher rate.

This week, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava proposed increasing tax funding for the Sheriff’s Office by about $55 million over current levels, but between $35 million and $40 million below what Cordero-Stutz requested, depending on which set of numbers is used. Cordero-Stutz said she needs about $93 million more from Miami-Dade next year to fill vacancies and hire for new civilian positions in what would be a 9% increase.

The bulk of the sheriff dollars come from property taxes as part of a $3.4 billion pool of money that funds core county services, including jails, parks and transit.

Levine Cava released a proposed 2026 budget on Tuesday that includes fee increases and cuts to parks, senior services and charity funding to close what she said was a $402 million deficit caused in part by the funding boost for the newly independent Sheriff’s Office.

In an interview, Levine Cava noted that Cordero-Stutz was a senior administrator at the Miami-Dade Police Department, which became the Sheriff’s Office at the start of 2025. Police budgets grew under Levine Cava, and the mayor pointed out the Sheriff’s Office is getting more funding and dollars for positions at a time when other agencies are facing cuts.

“Everybody knows that public safety is priority No. 1,” Levine Cava said. “We certainly wouldn’t want to jeopardize public safety. We do think reasonable growth is what’s incorporated in our proposal.”

While Florida’s Constitution required Miami-Dade to turn over its police department to an elected sheriff in 2025, the county government retains authority over the office’s tax funding.

In September, Miami-Dade commissioners will vote on the final Sheriff’s Office funding package when they consider Levine Cava’s full $12.9 billion budget proposal for all county services and agencies, including Miami International Airport, Metrorail, and the water and trash systems.

The public complaints by the sheriff about the budget mark the first significant rift between Levine Cava, a Democrat in an officially nonpartisan position, and Cordero-Stutz, a county police veteran and Republican who in November won Miami-Dade’s first sheriff election since the 1950s.

Once Cordero-Stutz took over the county police department, she began putting together a budget proposal with dollars to fill about 200 vacancies she inherited from Levine Cava and to create dozens of new civilian positions to manage new administrative duties. A projection from the Sheriff’s Office shows about three dozen vacancies remaining under the Cordero-Stutz budget, but 260 under the mayor’s budget.

The $93 million in additional funding Cordero-Stutz requested is part of a $1 billion budget plan Levine Cava proposed for the Sheriff’s Office, which includes funding from grants and municipalities that pay for deputies to provide local police services.

As detailed in a summary provided by the Sheriff’s Office, this is what the extra $93 million would pay for:

$63 million to cover raises and other staffing costs mostly required by police union contracts approved under Levine Cava before the sheriff’s election
Nearly $20 million to fill deputy vacancies, boost overtime and buy police equipment
$4 million for 54 new civilian positions for administration and maintenance services previously provided by county government
$7 million for added operational costs, including rebranding from the Miami-Dade Police Department to the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office

The Cordero-Stutz request for higher funding comes as commissioners are pushing Levine Cava to reverse some cuts in her budget proposal.

Commissioner Marleine Bastien, whose district in the northern Miami area includes some of the county’s poorest neighborhoods, called the Levine Cava budget proposal a “community train wreck.”

“It’s a budget without a soul,” she said.

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