Pompano Beach is seriously considering cutting ties with the Broward Sheriff’s Office after decades of contracted policing, opening the door to reviving its own city-run police department. What started as casual talk has turned into a formal process, with commissioners greenlighting a feasibility review and collecting consultant proposals to lay out the costs, staffing needs and potential response-time tradeoffs. With neighboring cities already walking away from BSO and contract estimates climbing fast, city leaders say they cannot afford to kick the decision down the road much longer.
The city has launched a public outreach push and scheduled both in-person and virtual meetings while it solicits bids from consultants to study whether a standalone police force makes financial and operational sense, according to the City of Pompano Beach. Officials say the review will dig into current service levels, budget pressures and what it would take to build a department from scratch, and residents will get chances to quiz public-safety experts along the way. A recommended consultant will first go before a selection committee, then land on the city commission’s agenda for a final vote.
City budget records show Pompano paid roughly $53 million to BSO in 2022 and about $57.5 million in 2025, and the sheriff’s latest proposal for 2026 would spike the tab to around $72.8 million, reporting by CBS News found. Mayor Rex Hardin has credited deputies with solid work but also acknowledged that the steep increases are squeezing a city that already pours a big chunk of its tax revenue into public safety. Commissioners say a full cost-benefit breakdown is nonnegotiable before they commit to either sticking with BSO or going it alone.
Why now: Deerfield's split and county pressure
Pompano’s timing is no accident. Deerfield Beach voted on Jan. 21, 2026 to start building its own police and fire services, a move that instantly raised the temperature on similar conversations across Broward County, WLRN reported. The sheriff’s office has pushed back, and WLRN also reported that Sheriff Gregory Tony has offered to pay for fresh studies in some cities so that decisions are rooted in data rather than politics. That strategy has placed extra pressure on neighboring municipalities to put real numbers and public-safety scenarios on paper before making choices that will be hard to reverse.
What standing up a department would entail
Creating a city police department is not as simple as swapping badges. Pompano would have to buy patrol vehicles, radios, weapons and records systems and bring on command staff and rank-and-file officers, a process city officials describe as complicated and costly, according to Local 10. Smaller cities that have peeled away from BSO, such as Pembroke Park, report that local control helped response times but caution that startup red tape and upfront expenses are no joke. The city’s planning, including community meetings and consultant bidding, has been chronicled as Pompano considers establishing its own force.
Countywide stakes
If Pompano follows Deerfield’s lead, the exit of more municipalities could reshape the sheriff’s office and ripple across countywide services. Reporting republished from the Sun-Sentinel notes that the Broward County Commission has hired consultants to analyze whether certain regional law-enforcement duties, including coverage at Port Everglades and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, should be reassigned, a potential shift in who pays for major services and how coverage is coordinated (via Yahoo).
For now, Pompano’s immediate task is choosing a consulting firm to run the feasibility study before commissioners decide whether to stick with BSO or build a hometown force, reporting by CBS News says. Any real transition to a municipal department would take months of planning, detailed budgeting, equipment purchases and negotiations over shared services before the first city-branded cruiser ever hits the streets.
