![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/download-4.webp?resize=265%2C190&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nHalman, who oversees the Public Safety divisions for county leadership, spent more than 32 years with the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office and eight years as a deputy county manager. His resignation is effective Jan. 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis decision comes after deep reflection and prayerful consideration. It has been one of the greatest honors of my life to serve the residents of Polk County, to work alongside so many talented professionals, and to witness firsthand the growth, innovation, and collaboration that have strengthened our community,\u2019\u2019 Halman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the Deputy County Manager of Public Safety, Halman led the divisions of Fire Rescue, Code Enforcement, Court Services, and Emergency Management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
County Manager Bill Beasley said losing Halman is the county\u2019s loss, but Haines City\u2019s gain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJoe has done a superb job in managing our Public Safety mission. He has especially excelled at moving our Polk County Fire Rescue Division forward. Under his leadership, we have increased recruitment efforts, increased the number of fire stations across the county to help improve response times, established and soon will be opening Polk County\u2019s first Fire Training Academy, secured partial funding for a new Fire Rescue Administration Headquarters and moved towards changing the culture of the fire rescue environment and improved diversity hiring,\u2019\u2019 Beasley said. \u201cIt is hard to sum up all of Joe\u2019s contributions over the years in a few sentences, but I can say, without a doubt, that he is definitely leaving his leadership footprint on all of those divisions with whom he engaged.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beasley said he is working on both an interim and more permanent plan to fill the vacancy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After more than 40 years in service to Polk County, Deputy County Manager Joe Halman, Jr., has resigned his position with the county and will be taking over as the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"14","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMjZcLzAxXC9kb3dubG9hZC00LndlYnAiLCJ0eHQiOiJEZXB1dHkgQ291bnR5IE1hbmFnZXIgSGFsbWFuIEFjY2VwdHMgTmV3IFBvc2l0aW9uIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.EVhZ8Mu_uyNGBnobW7JvStFD5MqGFOUdUrYX7kstrGwMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":60740,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/download-4.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[13118],"class_list":["post-60739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-deputy-county-manager-halman-accepts-new-position"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60739"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60741,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60739\/revisions\/60741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}