The Fort Walton Beach City Council voted 4-3 Tuesday night against a motion to request a proposal from the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office to provide full-time dispatch service for the city.

• Supporters described the request as a fact-finding exercise. Opponents framed it as a premature step that risked eroding city services and staff morale.

Councilman David Schmidt made the motion, which was seconded by Councilman Bryce Jeter. Voting in favor were Schmidt, Jeter and Councilman Payne Walker. Voting against were Councilmembers Debi Riley, Ben Merrell, Logan Browning and Gloria DeBerry.

Schmidt told the council the motion was limited to obtaining a proposal that could be reviewed during the budget process and was not a vote on consolidating dispatch with the county.

“Supporting this motion does not guarantee we’re starting the process to consolidate,” Schmidt said. “There may not be any savings, and I’m the first one to motion it’s done. There may be a savings while making sure we maintain that level of safety.”

Schmidt connected the request to the broader budget context surrounding property tax changes. He said the property tax proposal on the November ballot, including a $150,000 homestead exemption, could cost the city approximately $1.2 million in ad valorem revenue in the first year of the change. The city is also operating under a voter-approved 3% cap on personnel and operating expenditures.

Riley questioned early in the discussion why the item was on Tuesday’s agenda rather than the council’s June 23 budget workshop.

• “Why are we discussing this tonight when it should be coming toward the budget workshop?” Riley asked.

City Manager Jason Davis told the council the city needed time to develop the proposal before the budget process could weigh it. He said the timeline for an October 1 implementation would not survive a delay past July, and that he had held a preliminary conversation with the sheriff, who was amenable to looking at a proposal.

Jeter said the motion was about gathering data, comparing the request to obtaining a second price on a service.

• “I think we should get second prices on everything,” Jeter said. “Phone bill, insurance, every service that we have, we should get a second price.”

Jeter pointed to the city’s earlier exploration of outsourcing garbage service as an example of a similar review that had drawn resistance. The city ultimately kept garbage service in-house and added a second day of pickup.

“We did this not long ago with garbage, and it was the same thing, and I’m pretty sure garbage is still running, and garbage is running smoother and better,” Jeter said.

Walker said the city’s taxpayers were already funding county dispatch services through their county property taxes. He cited the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office’s contracted dispatch for the City of Destin, which according to figures previously discussed by Police Chief Robert Bage handled approximately 36,000 calls in 2025 compared to Fort Walton Beach’s 31,000.

• “So we city citizens pay twice for dispatch,” Walker said. “I think it creates an opportunity for us to get our money’s worth from the county instead of having to pay for duplicated services.”

Walker said he was concerned the discussion had focused on staff impact at the expense of taxpayer interests.

“I’m actually interested in the morale of taxpayers,” he said. “The morale of taxpayers doesn’t seem to be being considered up here.”

Riley returned in a second round of comments. She said the property tax pressure prompting the city’s budget discussions would equally affect the county, and that the sheriff’s office faces its own potential cuts.

“Why are we so willing to give part of our PD up?” Riley said. “Why are we so willing to talk about giving our fire department up? What else do you wanna give up?”

She warned against eroding city services.

• “If you start giving away all your services, you will be left with a desert city,” Riley said.

Merrell, who has publicly opposed the city’s 3% spending cap, said the cap was the source of the pressure now driving the consolidation discussion. He said constituents he had spoken with did not support outsourcing dispatch.

“When we just shop out just to see, it does undermine the morale and everybody in that job,” Merrell said. “I think that we are setting ourselves up to lose good people that would stay.”

DeBerry told the council she would not support the motion.

Browning raised the pension question directly with Bage. He asked the chief whether dispatchers moving to the county would be able to transfer their pensions if they received what he described as a $2.50 pay raise.

Bage said two or three current dispatchers are grandfathered into the city’s municipal pension system. The city is a municipal Section 185 employer; the county participates in the Florida Retirement System.

• “If you work for a county or state agency, you’re required to join the Florida State Retirement System, so I do not believe they will transfer over,” Bage said.

Bage told Browning that for tenured employees, the existing pension would likely be more valuable than the pay raise.

“I’m not supporting the motion,” Browning said. “I didn’t support it when it lost the first time. I’m not supporting it now. I support our staff, our fire, our police, our dispatch, and I’ll continue to support them.”

After the first round of comments, Davis offered additional operational context. He told the council the city’s police dispatch also handles water and sewer dispatches overnight, a function he said the county would be unlikely to take on. He said the cost of the city’s Computer Aided Dispatch system was the largest practical obstacle to consolidation, putting it at roughly half a million dollars.

Davis noted that the dispatch desk has provided a station for light-duty officers, including one assigned there while pregnant. He said no dispatch employees would lose their jobs if the city moved to county dispatch, because the city would offer them other positions.

• “Understanding that they might be working in the sanitation department, they might work in parks, wherever we have to keep them,” Davis said.

Davis also told the council the dispatch consolidation question had been considered previously. He said the reason it was rejected at that time, even with documented cost savings, was the council’s desire to maintain a staffed lobby overnight to greet walk-ups.

In a second round of comments, Schmidt confirmed through Davis that any dispatch employees not hired by the county would be offered other city positions, preserving their pension eligibility. He said the city was running short on options for staying under its legislative caps during this budget process.

“If we continue to not look at and evaluate proposals, the ‘math isn’t gonna math’ when we keep going through this budget process and not look at proposals,” Schmidt said.

The motion’s failure means staff will not pursue a written proposal from the Sheriff’s Office at this time. The next major budget conversation is scheduled for the June 16 budget workshop, where the council is expected to take up the broader list of operating sections identified for possible consolidation, outsourcing or cuts.