BARTOW, FL - Sheriff Grady Judd requested nearly $123 million for the next fiscal year from the Polk County Commission on Tuesday morning, saying the agency must keep up with the county's ballooning population.

Judd called the steady growth in areas like Poinciana and South Lakeland a "challenge," where deputies are responding to more 911 calls, resident complaints and traffic crashes.

"Our number one complaint isn't murder, rape; it's not loud disturbances. It's traffic," Judd said during the meeting at the County Commission chambers.

The $122,665,557 million budget request is about a 7.9 percent increase from the current year's $114.3 million budget.

About 77 percent, or about $95 million, of the agency's budget is for personnel.

A new crop of deputies, 16, will be added to the agency's roster next year, along with the 16 deputies hired last year and the 16 hired this year, Judd said.

And another 16 are pegged to join the agency every year for the next three years, primarily to meet the county's population growth.

The current fuel budget is based on paying $2.42 a gallon for gas, said Bea Reid, the agency's director of business affairs. But with rising prices the agency now pays $2.80 a gallon to put gas in its vehicles, Reid said.

The new budget calls for $2.4 million for fuel. That doesn't include the $115,000 budgeted to fuel the five planes and helicopters the agency owns, Reid said.