BRADENTON BEACH – On Thursday, May 7, at 10 a.m., the Bradenton Beach City Commission will conduct a special city commission meeting to discuss the $1.35 million proposal received from the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office to potentially provide the city’s law enforcement services beginning Oct. 1.
If the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office is contracted to provide the city’s law enforcement services, the Bradenton Beach Police Department would eventually be dissolved.
Thursday morning’s special commission meeting discussion is listed on the meeting agenda as, “Consideration of proposal for law enforcement services from Manatee County Sheriff’s Office.”
Public comment will be allowed during the 10 a.m. meeting. Those who wish to speak in support or opposition to the law enforcement options will be given three minutes each to do so.
Thursday morning’s meeting will be livestreamed at the Anna Maria Island Sun Facebook page,https://www.facebook.com/AnnaMariaIslandSun.
Comments made at the Facebook feed will not be seen in real time by the mayor and commissioners and those Facebook comments will not become part of the city’s official public record.
The commission was already scheduled to conduct its regular commission meeting at 6 p.m. The agenda for Thursday evening’s meeting does not include any items that reference law enforcement or policing services, but general public comment on non-agenda items can be given at the beginning of the Thursday evening meeting – although a commission decision on the sheriff’s office proposal might have already been made during the Thursday morning meeting?
Thursday morning’s special meeting was announced by the city clerk’s office on Wednesday, May 6, and the clerk’s office also provided a copy of the two-page proposal recently received from the sheriff’s office.
The sheriff’s office $1.35 million proposal includes $1.27 million in annual salary expenses for eight deputies and one sergeant. The proposal lists eight deputies’ salaries at $80,623 and one sergeant’s salary at $119,248. The $1.27 million also includes additional incentives, FICA tax reductions, retirement benefits and health benefits for the deputies and the sergeant.
The sheriff’s office proposal includes an additional $85,163 for operating expenses, bringing the total estimated first-year costs for county-provided law enforcement services to $1.35 million.
Previous discussion
The city’s discussions with the sheriff’s office appeared to have begun at some point after city officials learned that Bradenton Beach police officers were exploring the potential unionization of the city’s police department.
During the previous special commission meeting discussion on April 23, the city’s labor attorney, Robert Eschenfelder, noted the city’s current 2025-26 fiscal year budget includes $2.12 million for the Bradenton Beach Police Department.
Eschenfelder said he received a preliminary $1.5 million cost estimate from the sheriff’s office, which he said would likely decrease slightly upon further revision. Eschenfelder said the sheriff’s office’s original $1.5 million estimate was $628,000 less than what the city is currently budgeting for city police services.
The April 23 meeting ended with the commission unanimously approving a motion to make a formal request for Sheriff Rick Wells to provide “an operational analysis to provide an agreement for the city of Bradenton Beach for the sheriff to take over the law enforcement activities of the city of Bradenton Beach.”
The sheriff’s office’s most recent $1.35 million proposal is approximately $770,000 lower than the $2.12 million currently budgeted for the Bradenton Beach Police Department.
On April 27, six of the city’s eight potentially unionized police officers informed the city, in writing, that they would vote no on unionization. To date, the final unionization vote has not occurred.
Elsewhere on the Island
At the north end of the Island, the city of Anna Maria does not have its own police department. The city contracts the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office for those law enforcement services.
The city of Anna Maria’s current 2025-26 fiscal year budget includes $1.67 million for law enforcement services provided by the sheriff’s office. That marks an increase from the $1.52 million listed in the city’s 2024-25 fiscal year budget.
In the largest of the three Anna Maria Island cities, Police Chief Bill Tokajer leads the Holmes Beach Police Department that is provided with a $5.69 million police department budget in the city’s current 2025-26 fiscal year budget.
