- March 10, 2025
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office announced Friday that an agreement has been reached in the internal affairs investigation that began in January 2012 involving Sgt. Jamie Roster, stating that mitigating facts presented during the grievance process “revealed there is an agency-wide issue on how Sheriff’s Office employees are recording their hours worked,” according to a release by the agency.
While Roster’s investigation revealed a policy violation, it also determined this was not an isolated incident. In the agreement reached between attorneys for the Police Benevolent Association and the Sheriff’s Office, an external audit of time keeping practices and policies is required.
A preliminary report from the audit conducted by the Law Offices of Allen, Norton & Blue indicates there are other deputies assigned to specialized units who have more hours unaccounted for than those of Roster.
Using the same formula used to compute Roster’s hours, one deputy assigned to a specialized unit was missing 1,032 work hours with another deputy having a deficit of 1,267 hours. Samplings of several deputies’ time-keeping records were reviewed and indicated potential issues with the integrity of the agency’s time-keeping system, the report states.
“The system we have been using is the same one the agency has used for the past two decades,” Sheriff Donald Fleming said in a statement. “It is antiquated. “We focused on providing technology for deputies to do their jobs on the streets. This investigation found an internal problem that we need to address.”
Once completed, the external audit report will be shared with the transition team to help Sheriff-elect Jim Manfre determine the best course of action to help the Sheriff’s Office move forward.
“We have explored automated options in the past few years, but they were cost prohibitive considering we were trying to save the jobs of deputies and civilian staff,” Fleming said.
Discipline issued to Roster is a one-day suspension without pay and a written reprimand for failing to log in to his Mobile Date Terminal which is required by policy.
Roster will retain his rank as well as his assignments with the K-9 Unit and Crime Suppression Teams.
