MINUTES OF
POLK COUNTY CHARTER REVIEW COMMISSION
JANUARY 8, 2002
Chairman Dan
Costello, called the meeting of the Polk County Charter Review Commission to
order at 6:00 p.m. on the 3rd floor conference room of the Citrus
& Chemical Bank, Bartow. Commissioner
Lindsey led the prayer and Commissioner Stoer led the Pledge of Allegiance.
Ms. Swearengin
called the roll. All Commissioners
were present.
The Chairman
said he would like the record to show the Commission had a quorum.
The Chairman
introduced Lea Ann Thomas, the Assistant County Manager.
She was there in the event any questions should arise regarding budget or
management matters.
Mr. Spitzer said
he would like to introduce Larry Arrington, who was a colleague of his, who was
a former County Administrator with Volusia County, and had been in and out of
the consulting business for the past twenty or twenty-five years or so, and was
a well recognized expert on charter government.
The Chairman
said the first order of business would be for the approval of the minutes for
the last meeting of last year, November 27, 2001.
He asked if there were any corrections to the minutes, and if there were
none, he would entertain a motion for approval of the minutes of November 27,
2001.
Commissioner
Masters made a motion to approve the minutes of November 27, 2001 and
Commissioner Nunnallee seconded the motion.
The Chairman
asked if there was further discussion? There
was none. The motion carried
unanimously.
The Chairman
said he had a very brief report. He
thought at the last meeting or the meeting prior to that, he passed out two
reports to the Commission from Broward County on its Management and Efficiency
Committee. He said on January 29,
2002, the commissioners would be discussing whether or not they would build into
Polk County’s Charter something similar to what Broward County had in its
charter. He said that was to say a
Management and Efficiency Study Committee.
He said he
copied the section of the charter, which referred to the Management and
Efficiency Study Committee from the Broward County Charter.
He told them that they might want to read that information at their
leisure, and he asked that they read at least one or both of Broward County’s
reports for 1999 and 2000.
He said the
Management and Efficiency Study Committee in Broward County operated in between
the Charter Review process, and he thought the Charter Review was every eight
years there. He said they met for a
total of two years, and they made recommendations to the County Commission,
which might be later taken up by the new Charter Review Commission, which came
on board. He said the committee was
appointed by not only the commissioners, but also by groups within the county
itself. He said Broward’s Charter
Commission did have an Executive Director, and her name was Lisa Aronson, and he
was trying to make arrangements for Lisa to come to the Commission’s meeting
on January 29th, and as the proposal was being discussed she could
brief them on any questions they had regarding what the situation was in Broward
County.
The Chairman
said that completed his report. He
asked if Mr. Spitzer had a report for the Commission?
Mr. Spitzer said
he had nothing to report.
The Chairman
asked Mr. Watts if he had a report for the Commission?
Mr. Watts said
based on an inquiry from the Supervisor of Elections, the Chairman had asked him
to review an apparent discrepancy between Section 5.2.3 of the Polk County
Charter as it was adopted in 1998, and the current version of Florida Statute
Section 99.095B. He said those two
sections dealt with the petition requirements for qualifying to run for office,
and in the case of the Supervisor of Elections, she was the only officer made
non-partisan by the 1998 Charter, and in order to create a petition process for
qualifying to run for that office there was the substantial equivalent of what
the statute then required for partisan offices.
He said they inserted a petition requirement of 1.5% of the signatures of
qualified electors of any party. He
said at that time the requirement for qualifying to run for that office as a
partisan office would have been 3% of the registered voters of the party from
which the candidate was drawn.
He said after
the charter was adopted the Constitution Revision Commission proposed and the
people approved in 1998 an amendment to Article 6, Section 1 of the Constitution
to specify that the requirements for a candidate with no party affiliation or a
minor party for placement shall be no greater than the requirements of the
candidate of the party having the largest number of registered voters.
Faced with that constitutional amendment in 1999, the Legislature amended
99.095 of the statutes to reduce the requirements for qualifying by petition,
whether it was in a partisan race or otherwise, from 3% to 1%, so the net effect
of the constitutional and statutory changes since that charter had been adopted
was to reduce the general requirements for qualifying by petition to 1% of the
registered voters who were members of either party.
Nevertheless, Polk’s Charter still required 1.5% for the Supervisor of
Elections. He said that was a
discrepancy, which probably made that provision of the Charter invalid at the
present time because of the constitutional amendment, and it deserved the
Commission’s attention at some point in their deliberations before they
concluded.
The Chairman
asked since it did say 1.5% and it was approved by the voters even not
withstanding the general law, which passed changing it to 1% would the voters
still have to act on it?
Mr. Watts
answered what the Commission should probably do in light of the change to the
statute making the requirements the same for anyone whether they were partisan
or non-partisan, was to delete that section from the Charter.
The Chairman
asked if that would require the voters’ approval?
Mr. Watts
answered yes it would.
The Chairman
asked if the language that the voters received would be given that background?
Mr. Watts said
the language would say that section was no longer constitutional after the 1998
amendment of the Constitution and should be removed from the Charter.
Commissioner
Lindsey said he had two questions. He
asked what if they didn’t pass it?
Mr. Watts
answered he thought it had the same effect, but one should know when they picked
up the Charter that not all of the provisions in it were valid, and they now
knew that particular provision was not.
Commissioner
Lindsey asked if there should then be a caveat imposing at such future date any
section found to be unconstitutional would be automatically amended or
corrected?
Mr. Watts said
they did have that clause in the original enacting ordinance of the charter, and
if any provision of that charter should be found invalid that it did not affect
the validity of the rest of the charter.
Commissioner
Strang asked if it was a severability clause?
Mr. Watts
answered yes, and it was in the Charter.
The Chairman
said that same provision was in 8.5 then.
Mr. Watts said
the Charter was not invalid by reason of that change in the Constitution.
He said it was a housekeeping matter.
He said he didn’t know what would happen if they didn’t pass it.
He said there was some other language that the Constitution Revision
Commission proposed in 1998 that cleaned up some of the gender language in the
Constitution, and that passed. He
said it really had no affect, and probably would not have had an affect had it
not passed, but it did make the Constitution gender neutral.
He said he recommended it as a housekeeping matter, and whether the
voters approved it or not was always up to the voters, but he thought the
Commission should do their duty and remove that section if it was no longer
valid.
The Chairman
said he thought his answer to that question would be that they had an
educational function to perform after the Commission was finished in April, and
he thought if the voters voted against that one maybe they didn’t do their
job.
He asked that
the Commission take action on that issue because Mr. Watts’ recommendation was
that they delete 5.2.3 and the others would have to be renumbered accordingly in
view of that particular report, and he asked if there was a motion?
Commissioner
Strang made a motion to delete Section 5.2.3 of the Charter and Commissioner
Gernert seconded the motion. The
Chairman asked if there was further discussion?
Commissioner
McLaughlin asked if Mr. Watts would give the Commission some flavor of other
counties’ approach to that issue. He
said it was his understanding in law that if a provision was held
unconstitutional that it was only unconstitutional in the statutory provisions
in which it governs, and what he was basically asking was if they were wasting
their time even though it was a housekeeping matter if they could get a court to
basically say that it was unconstitutional, and that it would be reduced down to
1% and to put that on the ballot. He
said his concern was they didn’t want to have six or seven issues on the
ballot, but maybe in the end they would, but if that didn’t have to be on
there, then they really wouldn’t want to put it on there, and he asked what
would they do if the voters rejected it?
He said he knew
in Sarasota County they had few issues in their charter that were held
unconstitutional, and he asked if that was correct, and he asked if they cleaned
those up or if they let them stand?
Mr. Watts
answered they were removed by judicial order, and the text of the charter
deleted them, and showed that they were no longer operative by virtue of the
judgments of courts. He said there
was no formal repeal by the people of those provisions.
Commissioner
McLaughlin asked, so it doesn’t really take a candidate for the Supervisor of
Elections having to appeal to the Judiciary to get that 1%?
Mr. Watts said
it was just a question of whether they would want to put them through that.
He said his opinion was that section was then contrary to the
Constitution, and the streamlining and the easing of ballot access for all
parties that was adopted in the 98 Constitution really made moot the effort that
was attempted to be made by 5.2.3 to equalize the requirements for partisan and
non-partisan. He said the
Constitution really did the same thing, and did it in a way that was different
from the language they had there, and so the Constitutional language needed to
prevail. He said the question was
what was the most efficient way to say that.
He said they could ask a judge to strike it, but he didn’t think they
would really be adversarial.
The Chairman
said back in 1998 the voters approved a charter.
He said they amended it in 2000, and he thought that he as a voter would
expect if any changes were made regardless of whether it was made for
Constitutional and permissible reasons, or otherwise he would want to know about
it. He said he thought it was how
the proposals were drafted. He said
he thought if it were drafted adequately people would understand they had no
recourse, but at least it would go before the voters, and furthermore their job
was to present amendment or revisions to the Charter to the County Commission
for inclusion on the general ballot in November of 2000.
He said that said to him that would include any change at all, including
the deletion of an article that would otherwise be invalid because of a
constitutional reason.
Commissioner
Lindsey asked why the severability clause didn’t take care of it
automatically?
Mr. Watts
answered because it had not been adjudicated to be unconstitutional.
He said it would take a judge to remove it.
Commissioner
Lindsey asked if it was the fact that the Constitution was passed, but not
adjudicated that put it in limbo?
Mr. Watts
answered the Constitution passed, and they then had a provision of the charter
that was in conflict with the state constitution, but it was still in Polk’s
Charter. He said if a Supervisor of
Elections tried to qualify by petition and the petition was turned down because
it had 1% instead of 1.5% the petition would be valid under the Constitution and
it would be invalid under the Charter, and someone would have to go to court to
require that petition to be accepted and to have that section of the charter
stricken as being unconstitutional.
Commissioner
Masters asked who would take it to that level?
Mr. Watts
answered probably no one.
Mr. Watts said
the fact remained that someone who didn’t hear all of that discussion or
didn’t want to hear all of it, and who happened to pick up the Charter, and
was thinking about running would look at that and say, I have to get 1.5% of the
people, and that might discourage someone and they might not understand that
section really conflicts with the Constitution, and it meant that the text of
the Charter was not legally accurate unless that was removed.
He said a judge had the power to remove it or the people have the power
to remove it by amendment, and those were the only two ways it could be removed.
The Chairman
asked if a constitutional amendment was made would any statute in conflict with
that eventually be changed?
Mr. Watts
answered that was correct.
The Chairman
said he thought the same was true with judicial decisions.
Mr. Watts
answered that was correct.
The Chairman
said it seemed to him that was a parallel to the process under discussion.
The Chairman asked if there was further discussion?
Commissioner
Masters asked if there was a motion on the floor?
The Chairman
said yes, there was a motion to delete 5.2.3 from the Charter. He said Commissioner Strang made the motion and
Commissioner Gernert seconded it. He
asked if there was further discussion? There
was none. The motion carried
unanimously.
The Chairman
asked Mr. Watts if, when he and Mr. Spitzer did the revision of the language, if
they would do the renumbering?
Mr. Watts
answered yes.
The Chairman
said the Commission was down to Item 6 on the Issues Agenda, and there was one
item County Constitutional Officers, Article 5.1.
The Chairman said Article 5.1 was very brief, and he read it to the
Commission. He said the remaining
sections of Article 5 applied to whether they would be partisan or non-partisan,
and he reminded the Commission they had just deleted one, “Qualification by
Petition”. He said Article
5.1 was really the “guts” of the presentation that evening although they had
reserved two meetings for constitutional officers.
He said they
would begin with a briefing by Kurt Spitzer.
He said Mr. Spitzer sent them a memorandum dated January 2002, and he
trusted they all had received it, and he invited Mr. Spitzer to speak.
(Copy attached to file copy of these minutes).
Mr. Spitzer
began his report by stating that the last memo the Commission received was in
addition to one that he prepared for them a few months back which was a little
more lengthy than the one of January 2, 2002.
He said appended to the January 2, 2002 memorandum were three
spreadsheets; with one being an update of one that they had seen several times
before covering the key provisions of the various seventeen charters in Florida,
and that was updated with new population and data on municipalities.
He said there were two other spreadsheets, which dealt more specifically
with the constitutional officers. He
said one attempted to provide more detail in terms of how the Charter Revisions
amended the offices in those seven counties that had made changes to the
constitutional officers. He said he
would go through that information with them in a moment.
He said the other spreadsheet only dealt with the Polk County
Constitutional Officers, and he said he worked with Lea Ann Thomas on that
spreadsheet and they polled budget information from the adopted budget of the
county, and also information on the number of employees for each office to give
them an idea of the size of the different offices that they were talking about.
He said there was other information on those particular offices too.
He said the memo of January 2, 2002 also tried to recap some of the
policy arguments that they saw and heard and discussed to some extent earlier.
He said that was the extent of the information that he provided, and he
would be happy to go through it.
He said he would
like to start with the spreadsheet on the other county charters that made some
changes to the constitutional offices beginning with Broward County.
He said he would like to say that was not an all or nothing sort of
issue. He said the Charter did not
have to be amended in a way to affect all of the offices.
The Charter may be amended to affect only some of the offices, and in
terms of how they affect some of the officers, there were a couple of different
options. He said only the Dade County Charter had a provision where
all of the county constitutional officers’ status had been abolished and
replaced with appointed charter officers. He
said there were other county charters where some of the offices were left as
constitutional offices, and others were abolished and their duties were
transferred to a position under the County Manager, and there were several
different options that they could consider if they so choose to do so.
He said Broward was an example of the latter.
He said the Appraiser, Sheriff and Supervisor remained as elected
constitutional offices. The duties
of the Clerk for Finance and Accounting were removed from the Office of the
Clerk of the Courts, and the duties of Tax Collector were abolished, and those
duties were merged to a Department of Finance under the County Manager. He said that was similar to the practice in Volusia County.
He said other
counties such as Clay and Osceola had left all of the offices untouched with the
exception of Office of the Clerk where Finance and Accounting was moved under
the manager, and there was an appointed commission auditor that was appointed by
the Board of County Commissioners.
He said Duval
had retained most of the offices, but they were retained as elected charter
offices, not elected constitutional offices with the difference being with an
elected charter office, whether it was appointed or elected, was that the office
subscribed to uniform administrative support policies as did any other
department of the county government such as Budget, Personnel, Purchasing, and
Data Processing, and those sorts of things.
He said Orange
County had retained all of the Constitutional Offices.
He said Orange had gone back and forth on that issue, and there was a
time when the Constitutional Offices were abolished and replaced with charter
offices. He said there was a
subsequent amendment that reinstated the constitutional offices except for the
duties of the Clerk. He said Orange
for many years, even prior to being a charter county by special act, had split
the functions of the Clerk between the Clerk of the Court, which remained as a
Clerk to the judicial system and an elected controller and the Charter retained
that policy.
The Chairman
asked Mr. Spitzer if there were seventeen charter counties?
Mr. Spitzer
answered that was correct.
The Chairman
asked if there were ten charter counties that made no change whatsoever?
Mr. Spitzer
answered that was correct with the exception of the caveat that it was similar
to Polk County where the Supervisor of Elections was elected on a non-partisan
basis, and he would not conclude that as altering the duties of the office or
its budget process. He said there
were some other changes that other charters made along those lines, but those
shown were the more significant changes.
Commissioner
Lindsey said in Mr. Spitzer’s comments, he mentioned that Orange County had
changed and then changed back, and he asked what the circumstances were that
caused them to change back?
Mr. Spitzer said
his understanding was that the change had been initiated by a Charter Review
Committee in Orange County, and the change back took place one election later,
two years after the first change was adopted, which was initiated by the
Sheriff, with a petition drive, which was successful in seeing the change put
back in place.
Mr. Spitzer said
he would like to continue with the final spreadsheet on Polk County Offices.
He said the Commission had asked for that sort of information some time
before concerning budget process and so forth.
He said the Supervisor and Sheriff were what were called “Budget
Officers” in that their budget was approved by the Board of County
Commissioners, and it was derived exclusively from the general fund of the
county, and the general fund was primarily composed of ad valorem tax revenues.
He said the Appraiser was an office where the budget was actually set by
the Department of Revenue for the Appraiser’s office, and it was then
apportioned out to the taxing entities within Polk County.
He said in a
somewhat similar fashion the Tax Collector’s budget had an approval process
with the Department of Revenue also, and that budget was largely determined by a
system of fees or commissions on taxes collected, and it was apportioned in a
similar fashion to the Appraiser’s budget, which was apportioned to the County
Commission and other taxing entities, but not schools and regular millage of the
school, but perhaps the voted millage, and not municipalities.
He said there was an appellate mechanism to dispute the Appraiser’s
budget going to the Governor and Cabinet, and there was not a similar mechanism
with the Tax Collector.
He said the
Clerk of the Court’s budget was a combination of three different types, and
the Clerk of the Court wore three different hats; the first being Clerk to the
Board of County Commissioners, the second being Clerk of the County Court, and
the third being Clerk to the Circuit Court.
He said there were different mechanisms for the budget approval process
for that office. He said there was
no appellate mechanism for the Clerk of the Court.
He said the
information provided was intended to give the commissioners an idea of the size
of the office, the budget approval process, and what some of the alternatives
were.
Commissioner
Strang said he had a brief statement that he would like to make to the
Commission. He said they were now
at the point in their work schedule where they could address what was perhaps
the greatest need facing Polk County today.
He said that need was the reform of the county fiscal system, and that
was the way their county government spent the hundreds of millions of dollars it
extracted from them in taxes every year. He
said only the voters could bring about that needed change because the Board of
County Commissioners lacked the legal power and perhaps even the will to make it
happen, and therefore it was up to them to present the matter to the citizenry
for a vote.
He said the
problem simply put was this. The
Board of County Commissioners, the people who were responsible for setting the
millage rates and establishing the county budget lacked the charter power to
control much of the spending of the budget, and because of the diffused and
confused accountability they failed to exercise much of the fiscal oversight and
control powers they possessed.
He said as a
result vast sums of Polk County taxpayers’ hard-earned money was lost every
year through wasteful duplication of services and lack of control over spending,
and the present system was an extravagance they could not afford any longer.
The voters of
Polk County could start their county government on the path to fiscal sanity by
enacting two referenda; the first being to transfer to the County Manager the
financial functions for the benefit of the Board of County Commissioners now
carried out by the Clerk of the Court, and the second being to change the status
of the five row officers from that of elected constitutional officer to that of
elected charter officer.
He said without
those revisions to the Home Rule Charter the State Constitution would continue
to forbid them from running their county like a business, and without those
revisions they would continue to see the money they took from them wasted
through duplication and lack of businesslike budgetary control.
He said with those charter revisions in place county commissioners would
not be able to avoid being held accountable for all the financial operations of
their budget, and through the County Manager they would have the power to effect
consolidations of support services, and to monitor continuously throughout the
fiscal year the spending activities of all participants in the county budget,
with the exception of the School Board.
The Chairman
thanked Commissioner Strang for his comments.
Commissioner
Lindsey said his question was for Mr. Spitzer.
He said in looking at his schedule of the Polk County Constitutionals,
(copy attached to file copy of these minutes) if he was reading the information
correctly, the Board of County Commissioners had oversight for the Supervisor,
the Sheriff, and within the spectrum of their responsibility, the Clerk.
He said, as he understood it, they didn’t have oversight for the
Appraiser, or the Tax Collector, and he asked if that was correct?
He said as far as the Appraiser was concerned in Mr. Spitzer’s comments
to the right of the spreadsheet, even if some change were made, the Charter may
not change the budget approval process to the DOR, and he asked if that was
correct?
Mr. Spitzer
answered that was right.
Commissioner
Lindsey asked, so the only remaining one that could affect change that did not
already have Board of County Commission scrutiny would be the Tax Collector?
Mr. Spitzer
answered in addition to the Sheriff and the Supervisor.
Commissioner
Lindsey asked beyond what they already have?
Mr. Spitzer
answered beyond what they already have.
Mr. Spitzer said
in the earlier memo that he provided them with there were numerous arguments for
leaving the system the same, and there were numerous arguments for changing the
system, but that was true if they wanted to do that. He said the Sheriff and the Supervisor were budget
offices. He said concerning the
Appraiser there were other changes that could be made, but the budget process
would still go to the Department of Revenue.
Commissioner
Lindsey said that Commissioner Strang represented that the County Commission
might not have the will or the power, and as he understood it, they had the
power in four of the five, but not in the Appraiser’s side because of the
budget process to the DOR.
Mr. Spitzer
answered they had the power in the Sheriff and the Supervisor and some of the
duties for parts of the budget for the Clerk of the Court; however, there was an
appellate mechanism that was authorized for the Sheriff to take his budget to
the Governor and Cabinet.
Commissioner
Lindsey asked if the Charter could change that?
Mr. Spitzer
answered yes.
The Chairman
said those budgets added up to more or less $113 or $114 million dollars and the
Sheriff and Supervisor’s added up to about $91 million, and the other three
combined added up to about $22 million.
Commissioner
Strang said he would like to respond to Commissioner Lindsey. He said the Citizens Committee for Efficient County
Government found that with most, if not all of the constitutional officers,
because of their constitutional powers could establish Fleet Management, Human
Resources, Purchasing, Information Systems, Risk Management, and all sorts of
support services separate from what the Board of County Commissioners
established in duplication of those services, and they could, and did in some
cases. He said the
combination of that, and the failure of the Board of County Commissioners for
whatever reason to exercise continuous budgetary control over the budgets of the
constitutional officers was found to be very wasteful.
The Chairman
said he had a question for Commissioner Strang.
He said his perception of the problem as it existed, was not necessarily
with how the constitutional officers were managing their area of responsibility,
but the issue, as it seemed to him, which was at least the public’s
perception, and his own perception was how the County Commission was managing
its affairs. He said he found it a
little strange to be passing a tremendous amount of responsibility to them from
areas that were apparently operating quite well then, to the county
commissioners’ oversight when in his perception, that was an area that was not
operating that well.
Commissioner
Strang said he thought there was a lot to what Chairman Costello was saying, and
as he mentioned in his statement, the Board of County Commissioners in his
opinion, was not exercising a lot of the fiscal powers that they had at that
time, but because the responsibilities were so multitudinous and they were so
defused, he thought that gave the Board of County Commissioners an out for not
exercising those powers, but the system was ripe with all sorts of instances
where each constitutional officer and the Board of County Commissioners had gone
his or her own way in setting up systems. He
said he thought one of the most egregious ones was the matter of the GIS.
He said there were about four or five geographical information systems
that stood in the county with different hardware and software, and beyond that
duplicate data entry, which had run the costs out of sight.
He said he would hate to see something like that perpetuated and them run
the risk of having another GIS debacle on their hands one of those days.
The Chairman
replied, ironically, he thought the effort to improve the GIS system was one
that was initiated by a county constitutional officer and not by the County
Commission.
Commissioner
Strang replied, be that as it may, it was still duplicative.
The Chairman
answered yes, he understood that.
Commissioner
Masters asked if there was a way the Commission could get its arms around each
topic? In other words, were they going to vote on this, this, or this, and on
the items which were completely off of the table, which no one was interested in
dealing with, to get those items off of the table and get down to the items that
were on the table.
The Chairman
asked Commissioner Masters if he wanted to make any changes to the Charter?
Commissioner
Masters answered that he would like to start for argument sake, and make a
motion to leave the Charter as it stood with respect to 5.1.
The Chairman
asked Commissioner Masters if his motion was to leave the Charter as it stood
with respect to Article 5.1?
Commissioner
Masters answered that was correct.
The Chairman
asked if there was a second to that motion, and Commissioner Price seconded the
motion. The Chairman asked if there
was further discussion?
Commissioner
Masters said they had different groups come and speak to them concerning several
topics, and one of the items that had been mentioned was the efficiency and the
use of several MIS departments or motor pools.
He said one of the issues that had been brought to them was regarding
human resources, and he asked them if they had talked to that person, and the
person replied, “no”, and he asked if they had any recommendations, and they
replied, “they didn’t know”, and he asked did they want this, and they
replied “no”. He said he then
called the County Manager and he asked him if there was an efficiency there, and
he thought they should take advantage of it.
He said they really didn’t want it, and they didn’t think they could
do it more efficiently than those several groups. He said he asked what did they
know that was broken, and what did they know that was not working, and what
services out there did they feel were not working?
He said he remembered one report that the Tax Collector brought to them
regarding the MIS Department, and he called the county and said he wanted to use
their people to do a small program, and six months later he still didn’t have
that person to come over there, so he hired someone and had it done because his
constituency needed that service.
He said it was
kind of like, if Commissioner Lindsey and he were both builder developers, and
Commissioner Lindsey and he had their own budgets, but Commissioner Lindsey
would be in charge of all of the budgets and would make the final decisions.
He asked where did they think his computer system would be compared to
his? He said he wouldn’t have a say on it, and he would
basically sit back and say if he could get Commissioner Lindsey to take care of
his computer system, he could take care of the problem, but since he couldn’t
he would just sit there and not do anything about it.
He said when they tried to control the budgetary process and they said
let’s make the county commissioners in charge of it that took five people off
of the hook, and they would say it’s not my problem anymore, it’s the county
commissioners’, and secondly they were already screaming about not having
enough time to get to all of the items, and then they were going to say here is
our budgets and scrutinize these, and be in charge of the budgetary process.
He said they didn’t have the time then to do it, and what was going to
happen was it was going to be pushed down to staff, and staff would make a
recommendation and they would wave their wand and would say maybe that is what
we need to do. Recently the Clerk of the Court received his twenty-first
Certificate of Excellence for financial reporting.
He said there was only one other county in the state who had more, and
that was twenty-two. He said since
the 1800’s that had been the way that it had been done.
He said he would be glad to fix something that they knew was broken, and
they had several people, and they even had a Chamber come to them. He said they hadn’t had the County Manager come to them or
they hadn’t had other than one county commissioner who was speaking for
himself, and not the other commissioners, and a group that came to their
meetings regularly to say that they had to change that situation.
He said he would like to know what they were fixing.
The Chairman
said in fairness to Mr. Keene, he did not propose it, but when asked the
question whether or not he wanted the financial function transferred he
indicated he thought that would be a good idea, so he thought that was an
exception.
Commissioner
Lindsey said he thought Commissioner Lindsey or Commissioner Strang asked him.
Commissioner
Strang said he thought he did that under duress.
Commissioner
Masters said again, on the other side of that, twenty-one years’ of
Certificates of Excellence in financial reporting, and he asked what did they
think the county was going to do better?
The Chairman
asked if there was other discussion?
Commissioner
Gernert said he did not want to unnecessarily complicate things, but he said it
appeared to him that Mr. Spitzer’s cross matrix’s would be much more helpful
from his perspective, if it listed Polk County’s constitutionals, their
budgets, and their number of employees. They could compare those to other
counties and find some measure. He
said what came to mind was when Marsha Faux spoke to them, she spoke about the
number of parcels that had to be appraised in the various counties, and he said
he would assume that her budget would relate to the number of parcels that she
had to be responsible for, and he would hope or assume that same measure would
apply in other counties.
He said it would
be very helpful for him before he decided what had to be done if he could
compare the efficiency of those to other charter counties.
He said he knew that was a lot of data gathering unless Mr. Spitzer had
already done it, but to let the chips fall where they may.
He said he realized some other organization or county may be implementing
a big computer system or making a huge capital expenditure, but that could be
determined from that county and they could ask if there were any anomalies in
that particular budget.
The Chairman
reminded the Commission that they had two meetings to discuss that particular
topic so they didn’t have to make all of the decisions tonight or even any of
them, although their next meeting was next week.
He said they really needed to try to wrap up that issue by the next week.
Commissioner
Strang said he would think that an aye vote on Commissioner Master’s motion
would give the Commission an extra hour and a half that evening and enable them
to cancel the next meeting.
The Chairman
said they still needed deal with whether they should be partisan or
non-partisan.
Commissioner
Lindsey said it seemed they had two conflicting impressions, with one being
constituent services from the various constitutionals, and he hadn’t heard
anything during the last eight or ten months that the Commission had been
meeting that any of the constitutionals were not doing what they were charged to
do. He said generally it seemed
that it was a fairly competent staff with dedicated individuals going about
their daily tasks. He said the dilemma as Commissioner Strang suggested, and he
said common sense told them if there was one person or one department in charge
of Risk Management there had to be some efficiencies as opposed to having six
Risk Management departments. He
said the same was true with some of the other apparent duplications.
He asked were there mechanisms to affect that kind of economies?
He said he did recognize at some point responsibility would be piled on
top of responsibility, and it would collapse under its own weight, but the
Chairman said if they were to rank the five constitutionals and the sixth being
the County Commission in order of efficiency and public stature he knew where
the County Commission would fall. He
said it seemed like they were turning it upside down to give them even more. He said common sense said there had to be efficiencies to be
achieved that were then going off in different directions.
The Chairman
asked if there was further discussion on the motion?
Commissioner
McLaughlin said he had spent a good deal of time focusing on the issue because
he thought it was one, when one looked at percentage increases, it seemed rather
glaring. He said the constitutional
officers indulged them with a lot of information, and he read over that, and he
thought they made some very good points. He
said he thought ultimately the problem they had was that they had a structure
and system in place which allowed for buck passing, and he thought previously
they had a little more leadership in the actual County Commission, which allowed
for a little more influence over those budgeting matters, and as of then, he
thought the County Commission was caught with in fighting, and there was a lot
of buck passing, and they basically said, well we couldn’t get to that because
we could be overruled anyway, when in fact literally if they said listen, to the
Property Appraiser or the Sheriff this budget is way out of
whack, you need to make a change. He
said he thought what they had then was a system where there was a horizontal
County Commission with no particular strong leader emerging, and if they would
indulge him, his suggestion was one which he had made previously, which was the
solution to their budgeting process, and was not necessarily giving the
authority back to the County Commission. He
said he thought the solution was putting one person in charge, and thus either
going to an elected county chairperson or elected county manager, and he thought
that was one thing they should keep in the back of their minds.
The Chairman
said of course that issue could be revisited.
He said it was turned down the first time it was discussed, and anybody
who was on the winning side of that motion could move that it be revisited.
The Chairman asked if there was further discussion on that motion, which
was to leave the Charter as it stood with respect to Section 5.1?
There was no further discussion. The
Chairman asked Ms. Swearengin to call the roll for a vote.
The results were 11/2 with the ayes prevailing.
The motion carried.
The Chairman
said they were now down to non-partisan offices.
He read Article 5.2.1 to the Commission, and he indicated that the
Commission could not make the Supervisor of Elections partisan because he
thought that was a matter of the general law of the Constitution, and he asked
Mr. Watts for concurrence on that issue.
Mr. Watts said
he thought that was in the Constitution.
Commissioner
Masters asked if that was in the original Charter?
Chairman
Costello answered yes, but he thought they made it subsequent to the Charter.
He asked Mr. Spitzer and Mr. Watts if he was correct in his thoughts?
Mr. Spitzer said
he was not sure, but he knew that the School Board was made non-partisan.
The Chairman
said maybe he was confused with the School Board.
The Chairman
read Article 5.2.1 to the Commission. He
said he thought they could change that back to partisan or they could make one
or more of the others non-partisan instead of as they currently were, partisan.
The Chairman
asked Mr. Spitzer if he had any information on that issue.
Mr. Spitzer said
no he didn’t. He said he assumed
that topic would be dealt with at the next meeting.
Commissioner
Masters said he would like to make a motion for discussion purposes that they
leave the Charter as it currently stood pertaining to the partisan –
non-partisan issue.
The Chairman
asked if what he was saying was to make no changes to 5.2.1?
Commissioner
Masters said that was correct.
The Chairman
said the motion was to make no changes to 5.2.1, and he asked if there was a
second to that motion? Commissioner
Dukes seconded the motion. The
Chairman asked if there was further discussion?
Commissioner
Strang said that he would go back to the same comments that he had regarding the
Board of County Commissioners. He
said a pothole didn’t have a Democrat or Republican tag on it. He said he thought the interest of the voters and good
government would be better served if they concentrated more on the abilities and
worth, and the issues espoused by the individual candidates than by what kind of
a political tag they wore. He said
in the prior Commission they had a discussion over partisan versus non-partisan,
and one of the county commissioners pointed out that he was afraid if they ran
those races on a non-partisan basis communists would take over.
He said what that commissioner failed to realize was every municipality
in the State of Florida was elected on a non-partisan basis, and he thought good
government would be advanced if the voters were given a chance to vote on their
row officers on a non-partisan basis.
Commissioner
Lindsey said he wouldn’t necessarily agree with that on the County Commission
level, but he did agree with that on the constitutionals.
He said that would still require a majority and it would not be
plurality, and he asked if that was correct?
He asked Mr. Watts if they were still saying if there were three running
they would still have a run off and they would still have to get a majority
vote?
Mr. Watts said
that wouldn’t change.
Commissioner
Lindsey said he would like to share the observation that in those administrative
applications that partisan was less important than policy making, and he was
surprised during those last few months they hadn’t heard more about it one way
or the other, and he was surprised the parties themselves hadn’t taken a more
proactive position one way or the other, and he thought their silence was
deafening.
The Chairman
said he wanted to speak regarding that issue.
He said Commissioner Strang and he were not often on the same side of the
fence, but they were regarding that issue.
He said he voted to make the County Commission non-partisan, but he
thought there was a strong feeling on the part of the Commission to keep it
partisan, and he said he could see a reason to keep that partisan, but honestly,
he said he could see no reason whatsoever to keep the Clerk of Courts, the Tax
Collector, the Property Appraiser, or the Sheriff partisan.
He said it made no sense whatsoever when they were talking about the
arrest argument or the tax collection argument or the property appraiser
argument, and he asked what sense did it make to have a Republican, Libertarian
or a Democrat or any other party for that matter in those positions?
He said he
polled the constitutional officers on that issue when he was first appointed
because it was one that he was really concerned about, and only one of the
constitutional officers felt they should be partisan, and as he understood it
they were lukewarm regarding that issue, and as he understood it that person may
have changed his or her mind, and he thought it was non-controversial.
Chairman
Costello said to Commissioner Masters that he would vote a resounding “no”
on that issue because he thought that 5.2.1 should be expanded, and the
Supervisor of Elections should have the company of the four other constitutional
officers.
Commissioner
Masters said his motion was more for discussion purposes than anything.
He said his only concern was, and he thought it was clearly written
concerning the Supervisor of Elections and if this detracted from their office,
and it was proved legally then that would be taken off.
He said he agreed with the Chairman on that issue.
The Chairman
asked if there was further discussion?
Commissioner
Gernert said he wanted to wholeheartedly agree with all four of them.
Commissioner
Moore Bailey said first of all she wanted to say Happy New Year to everyone.
She said primarily she felt that parties and politics with regards to the
Supervisor of Elections, the Property Appraiser, and the Tax Collector would
probably be wise to have them non-partisan; however, she felt with the others
party politics would always play a role, and she supported partisan politics in
that regard.
Commissioner
Lindsey asked Commissioner Moore Bailey which constitutional officers she would
leave partisan?
Commissioner
Moore Bailey responded by saying the Sheriff’s Department, and non-partisan
for the Supervisor of Elections, the Property Appraiser, and the Tax Collector.
Chairman
Costello asked if the Sheriff and the Clerk would be Partisan?
Commissioner
Moore Bailey answered yes, and definitely the commissioners.
The Chairman
asked if there was further discussion?
Commissioner
McLaughlin said his feeling was as he said when they discussed the County
Commission non-partisan, and to him that made more sense, but he said he would
agree with Commissioner Moore Bailey in that the position of Sheriff
traditionally had been a very partisan position, and he thought that the
approach that a Sheriff might take in governing and in policing could have
something to do with party affiliation. He
said he favored making all of the other offices non-partisan, but he would leave
the Sheriff’s office partisan.
The Chairman
asked Commissioner McLaughlin if he could tell him what the distinction was
between Republican, Democratic or
Libertarian sheriffing?
Commissioner
McLaughlin answered that he was sure if he asked those candidates they would
have a distinction for him.
The Chairman
said he must have a distinction in mind.
Commissioner
McLaughlin said he thought Sheriffs’ in large counties were particularly
partisan, and he imagined historically it was a very partisan position.
Commissioner
Strang thanked the Chairman for mentioning Libertarian Sheriffs, and as a matter
of fact the Sheriff of Telluride, Colorado was a Libertarian and had not made
any busts for marijuana.
Commissioner
Nunnallee said she had a problem in that once they take over office whether they
were Democrat, Republican, or also ran, but when they took over that office they
were supposed to act in a very non-partisan way, and she would find it very
offensive if there were someone in that office who would not act in a
non-partisan way, and she asked how would one act as a Democratic or a
Republican when it came to enforcing the law, and she said perhaps an attorney
had more information on that .
Commissioner
Moore Bailey said she wanted to respond to Commissioner Nunnallee. She said what they were doing basically was they were there
as non-partisan individuals although they were appointed by partisan
politicians, and of course in their way of thinking, it bore in mind that
perhaps they might with some of their decisions think partisan to a degree.
She said she thought there was that possibility because of the mindset of
people, and how they had been conditioned to believe what they believed was how
the partisan politics played in all of them, and that was fairness.
Commissioner
Lindsey said he would encourage a vote to make them all non-partisan, and then
as they did their road shows see what kind of reaction that they receive through
the public hearings, and at that point after they reconvene they could see what
kind of reaction they get in the community, but for then he asked that they
embrace all of them as non-partisan and then revisit that.
The Chairman
said that would translate as a “no” to the motion, and the motion was to
make no changes to 5.2.1.
Commissioner
Lindsey said that was what he was encouraging.
Commissioner
Masters asked if that would mean that he would need to vote “no” so that he
would have a chance of bringing the issue up again?
The Chairman
asked if he thought the “no’s” would prevail?
Commissioner
Masters said yes.
The Chairman
said if he voted “yes” he would not be able to initiate a motion to bring it
up, but if he voted “no” he could.
The Chairman
asked if there was further discussion on the motion?
Commissioner
Dukes said that he appreciated Commissioner Masters opening that issue up for
discussion, but he appreciated everyone else’s comments more because it had
shed a lot of light on the issue for him, and he felt non-partisan was what it
was about when it came to that level of government, and he thought the
“no’s” would have the vote.
The Chairman
asked if there was further discussion?
Commissioner
Moore Bailey said just for the sake of that discussion she would like to throw
out that they were looking at a document that was supposed to stand for perhaps
another ten years, and she hoped as they made those decisions that they thought
about that document and the people that it would affect.
The Chairman
asked if there was further discussion? There
was none. The Chairman reminded the
Commission the motion was to make no change to Article 5.2.1, which he read to
the Commission. He said the
motion was made by Commissioner Masters and seconded by Commissioner Dukes.
The Chairman
asked Ms. Swearengin to call the roll for a vote.
The results were 13/0 with the nay’s prevailing.
The motion lost because it did not garner at least a 2/3rds vote.
The Chairman
asked what changes did they want to make to 5.2.1, in other words, who did they
want to provide company to Supervisor of Elections?
Commissioner
Lindsey made a motion that all of the Constitutional Officers be added to that
list.
The Chairman
asked if they would all be non-partisan?
Commissioner
Lindsey answered yes.
The Chairman
said the motion was made by Commissioner Lindsey and seconded by Commissioner
Strang. The Chairman asked if
there was further discussion?
The Chairman
said in a sense they had touched on that before, and some of them believed some
of the officers should continue to be partisan, and he said he thought
Commissioner Moore Bailey said the Sheriff and the Clerk of Courts, and
Commissioner McLaughlin had a slightly different twist on that.
Commissioner
McLaughlin said he was inclined to agree with what Commissioner Lindsey stated
earlier, and that was he thought the best way to put the public on notice that
group was thinking about making all the positions non-partisan, was to say they
were going to make all of them non-partisan, and that way the folks who believed
the Sheriff should be non-partisan should show up at the public hearing, and let
the Commission know about it. He
said he would favor that motion, and he thought it was a good idea, and that way
everyone would know what the Commission was doing.
The Chairman
asked if there was further discussion?
Commissioner
Strang said he thought that was an excellent way towards campaign finance reform
in his opinion.
The Chairman
said the motion was to amend 5.2.1 to add the other four Constitutional Officers
along with the Supervisor of Elections. The motion was made by Commissioner
Lindsey, and seconded by Commissioner Strang.
The Chairman
asked Ms. Swearengin to call the roll for a vote.
The results were 13/0 with the aye’s prevailing.
The motion carried unanimously.
The Chairman
said the next item for discussion was Article 5.2.2, which was non-partisan
election procedures, and he read that article to the Commission.
The Chairman asked if they wanted to make any changes to that article,
and basically it was a plurality issue if they had three, and he asked if they
needed to take a vote on that or if it was general consensus?
The Commission replied it was general consensus to leave the article as
it stood.
The Chairman
said that 5.2.3 had been discussed previously.
The Chairman
read Article 5.2.4. He asked if the
Commission had any changes to that article?
There were none. The
Chairman asked if that was the consensus to leave the article as it stood? The Commission responded yes.
The Chairman
read Article 5.2.5. The Chairman
said according to the Commission’s actions that evening, he thought they
hadn’t changed that article, nor did he believe that they intended to. He said that completed Article 5, and he asked the Commission
if they did not want to have a meeting the next week, or did they want to
advance their process?
Commissioner
Moore Bailey moved to advance.
The Chairman
asked if Commissioner Moore Bailey wished to have a meeting the next week?
Commissioner
Moore Bailey responded yes.
Commissioner
Strang said he felt like most of them had the meeting already booked, and there
was the possibility of some things that might come up.
The Chairman
asked for all of those who wanted to meet the next week to raise their hand.
Commissioner
Price asked if it would impact when they finish or make their final report?
The Chairman
responded no.
The Chairman
asked the Commission how many wished to skip the next week’s meeting?
The Chairman
said it was clear to him that most people did not want to meet the next week, so
the next meeting would be on January 29, 2002, and they would be discussing the
appointed Superintendent, and it was highly likely from what he had read in the
newspaper that they would not be discussing that because the School Board was
not going to be recommending it, and the other item would be the Government
Efficiency Commission.
The Chairman
said they were down to Unfinished Business.
He asked if there was any Unfinished Business to come before the
Commission?
Commissioner
McLaughlin said that he wanted to address the Superintendent issue.
He said he thought the intent when the Commission voted was to give the
School Board an opportunity to do so, but from what he read, it was not that
they were permanently saying “no” to the Charter Review Commission, but what
they were saying was that they didn’t have time to deal with that issue, and
in light of that it would be his suggestion to entertain that issue and put them
on notice that the Commission planned on dealing with that issue, because he
thought it was on the hearts and minds of many people in Polk County.
The Chairman
said he wouldn’t change the schedule, but they would discuss that issue, and
his intention was to send written communication to the new chair, who was Jim
Nelson, and tell him the Commission was meeting on January 29th, and
that issue was up for discussion, and to get advice from him in writing so he
could make the Commission aware of it on January 29th.
Commissioner
Strang asked if it had been determined that issue was within the Commission’s
ambit?
The Chairman
said that the Commission’s attorney had advised them if the School Board
requested it, then it would be within his comfort range to recommend that the
Commission go ahead and include it on the ballot; however, if the School Board
did not request it the Commission’s attorney said it would be a pioneer type
issue, and that he would not feel as comfortable about it.
The Chairman
asked if there was any further Unfinished Business?
There was none.
The Chairman
said the Commission was down to Remarks of Interested Citizens, and the first
speaker would be Commissioner Randy Wilkinson, Vice Chairman for the Board of
County Commissioners.
The Chairman
reminded Commissioner Wilkinson of the Commission’s five-minute rule, and
invited him to speak to the Commission.
Commissioner Wilkinson began by saying that he was there several months ago, and he thought from the discussion Mr. Tedder said they didn’t want tit for tat, and he didn’t come to offer any tit for tat, because he thought all of the constitutionals and commissioners were well meaning people and they all wanted the best for the county and just had different perspectives.
He said he wanted to make a few comments about some of the tapes, and some of the things that were commented on his comments, and some of the things that were said about those comments, and some further questions that they might have had to constitutionals, and particularly questions from Commissioner Masters.
He said he would like to mention some of his suggestions. One was to have districts where commissioners did not run at large, and he thought that would defuse the power base a little bit for Polk County.
He said there was an elected County Manager, and he also mentioned some things about constitutional officers such as having them elected charter officers, and he thought there was some very good questions raised. He said subsequent to that, he knew a couple of the constitutional officers took some issue with what he had to say. He said Mr. Weiss, who was there in attendance at the meeting that evening, basically said his numbers were right regarding the budget growth. He said he would like to state that since Mr. Weiss was in office his budget had been the least explosive, and maybe that wasn’t the best term for it, but it had been around 3% or 4%, and he thought for that year it was 4%, which was the lowest increase other than the Supervisor of Elections, which came in at about 2%.
He said he tried to stay non-partisan and both of those individuals were from a different party than he was, and he had to recognize that they had done the best job over the last couple of years at restraining budget growth.
He said that Mr. Weiss said his numbers were right, but he was not taking into account that many of their programs had expanded as the county had asked more from them, and he felt that was a fair question. He said the Property Appraiser came and said to a question that Commissioner Masters’ had, and maybe it was more in response to Commissioner Masters, but Commissioner Masters thought the numbers were off, that he brought on the budget’s growth, and he said he reviewed the numbers again, and he had with him a stack of the budgets he found in the county. He said his figures did not vary much from Marsha’s when it was all said and done, but there were some differences, and she may be taking a proposed budget as opposed to what the actual expenditures were, but they could look those over.
Commissioner Wilkinson said he was not trying to be critical of the constitutionals, but he was trying to get a more direct line of accountability. He said some people say that the Chief Financial Officer of the county is the Clerk of Courts, and in looking at the statutes, he felt that was a little unclear how that was to be played out. He said he had not heard from another county where the Clerk of Courts really took that role as far as the critiquing of other departments budgets. He said if he remembered correctly, Commissioner Masters’ asked for one example, and only one example of how the Clerk of Courts had challenged a budget or withheld funds, and he mentioned when Burton Marlow was the Chief Contractor on the Court House where they withheld a check, and that was several years prior. He said to his knowledge, and when he asked for just one example, one was limited to just one example, but to his knowledge that hadn’t occurred since then, and he wasn’t aware of when it had occurred before then. He said he wasn’t being critical, but it wasn’t seemingly a role for the Clerk of Courts to provide that sort of directive to other constitutionals, and he wanted to clarify some of those remarks.
He said the statement had been said many times that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that was what Susan Freeburn told him about some of his recommendations, and that they would do more to concentrate power and therefore promote corruption. He said he had heard something that he thought was more of a truism, and that was that it was not power that corrupts, but the fear of losing power that really corrupts. He said he thought some of the things the Commission did when they took some of the measures he suggested would do more to help people have more courage about questioning, and about building a process that was strong, with a less political structure where the budget process was more effective over time.
He said those were just a few comments because he didn’t have a lot of time that evening, but he might come back and give some further information, but he wanted to provide a bit of an introduction response to some of the questions that they had.
The Chairman invited Mr. Arbuthnot to speak.
Mr.
Arbuthnot
Mr. Arbuthnot asked if the commissioners would speak a little louder. He said it was very difficult to hear them from where he was sitting in the room. He said he was interested in hearing everything they had to say, whether he agreed with it or not, and he said he was sure it was not clear on the tapes when they talked this way, and that way, and the other way, and the microphone was clear off over there.
The Chairman thanked Mr. Arbuthnot for his comments, and said that the Commission would take his advice seriously.
The Chairman said they were now down to New Business. He asked if there was any New Business to come before the Commission?
Commissioner Moore Bailey said she wasn’t aware that the Clerk of Courts was there, and she asked if she could ask him a question regarding partisan politics, with his office being non-partisan, and she asked if he was at liberty to speak on that issue?
The Chairman asked Mr. Richard Weiss, Clerk of Courts, if he would come to the microphone, so that his comments could be heard.
Mr.
Richard Weiss, Clerk of Courts
Mr. Weiss asked Commissioner Moore Bailey what her question was?
Commissioner Moore Bailey said her question was regarding the Clerk of Courts’ position, and she said she had heard he had done a good job numerous times over, and she asked how he felt as it related to having the Clerk’s office partisan or non-partisan?
Mr. Weiss replied that he totally supported non-partisan. He said he didn’t think whether he was a Democrat, Republican, or Libertarian or Independent mattered. He said his duties were set out in Florida Law and he was sworn to carry those duties out.
Commissioner Moore Bailey thanked Mr. Weiss for his comments.
The Chairman thanked Mr. Weiss for his comments.
The Chairman said without objection, the meeting would stand adjourned. There were no objections. The meeting adjourned at 7:25 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Cynthia Swearengin