CopyPublished | Florida 1st District Court of Appeal
...must include
authority over her budget and office’s expenditures.
Second, there is no statutory requirement that the Sheriff
seek Board approval prior to transferring funds between objects.
The only prohibition upon such transfers is found in section
129.06(5), Florida Statutes, which provides:
Any county constitutional officer whose budget is
approved by the board of county commissioners, who
has not been reelected to office or is not seeking...
...le month more
than one-twelfth of any itemized approved
appropriation, following the date he or she is eliminated
as a candidate or October 1, whichever comes later,
without approval of the board of county commissioners.
Section 129.06(5) clearly prohibits so called “lame duck”
sheriffs from transferring funds between objects without first
seeking Board approval....
CopyPublished | Supreme Court of Florida
...See, e.g., §
30.49(1), Fla Stat. (2020) (“Pursuant to s.
129.03(2), each sheriff shall annually prepare and submit to the
board of county commissioners a proposed budget . . . .”); §
30.50(4)
(“ [T]he budget may be amended as provided for county budgets in
s.
129.06(2).”); §
30.49(8) (“[Budget items] shall be subject to the
same provisions of law as the county annual budget ....
...And, by
October 15 of each year, the county submits a final budget, along
with other economic data, to the Office of Economic and
Demographic Research. §
129.03(3)(d).
It is unlawful for a county to exceed a budget that has been
finalized this way, unless the budget is modified as provided in
section
129.06, to which we will turn soon....
...county jail. §
129.08. In this way, the statute gives each county,
and the individual members of the board of county commissioners,
an incentive to ensure that any adjustments to the budget are made
a certain way—the way, that is, set out in section
129.06, the
provision at the center of this case.
Section
129.06 starts from the premise that, “[u]pon the final
adoption of the budgets as provided in this chapter, the budgets so
adopted must regulate expenditures of the county and each special
district included within the county budget, and the itemized
estimates of expenditures must have the effect of fixed
appropriations and may not be amended, altered, or exceeded
except as provided in this chapter.” §
129.06(1).
The statute lays out five ways a county may change the fixed
appropriations reflected in the budget without holding a public
hearing and, after such a hearing, adopting a resolution. §
129.06(2)....
...Even with found money, the county must adhere to
budgeting protocol. A receipt “received for a particular purpose . . .
[may] be appropriated and expended for that purpose,” but “[s]uch
receipts and appropriations must be added to the budget of the
proper fund.” § 129.06(2)(d)....
...Unless it is provided for in the budget, including by amendment in
any of the ways explained above, a transfer between funds may be
made only if it is to correct an error in handling receipts and
disbursements, or to properly account for unanticipated revenue or
increased receipts. § 129.06(3).
The last piece of section 129.06 relevant to this case is the so-
called “lame duck” provision....
...(b) where the governing body has decided that periodic
determination of revenues earned, expenses incurred and/or net
income is appropriate for capital maintenance, public policy,
management control, accountability or other purposes.”).
- 10 -
§ 129.06(5). Of note, this law prohibits the constitutional officers to
whom it is addressed “from making any budget amendments” along
the lines outlined elsewhere in section 129.06, not just from
“transferring funds between itemized appropriations.” Id.
B
Sheriffs are, in sixty-six of Florida’s sixty-seven counties, duly
elected constitutional officers.8 Chapter...
...Alachua Cnty., Fla. v. Darnell, No. 01-2017-CA-521,
2018 WL
11189988, at *1 (Fla. 8th Cir. Ct. Jan. 5, 2018).
The First District agreed. Its decision rested on three points:
section
30.53 preserves sheriffs’ independence; the “lame duck”
provision of section
129.06(5) specifies the only situation where the
sheriff needs board approval for a transfer; and Weitzenfeld v.
Dierks, 312 So....
...So, the Sheriff must follow the budgetary
amendment process established by the Legislature when seeking to
transfer money between objects in his budget.
B
But, says the Sheriff, what about the “lame duck” provision of
section 129.06(5)? In providing that “any constitutional officer ....
...Cnty. v. Darnell,
301 So. 3d 1027, 1029 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019)
(citation omitted) (quoting Moonlit Waters,
666 So. 2d at 900).
The expressio unius canon, also called the “negative
implication” canon, does support the Sheriff’s reading of section
129.06(5) if that provision is considered by itself, but—and this is
the matter before us—it does not supply the meaning of that
provision in the context of the whole text at issue. The Legislature
did not write section
129.06(5) on a blank slate in 1988....
...upon) a sheriff in a limited circumstance: when he or she “has not
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been reelected to office or is not seeking reelection . . . following the
date he or she is eliminated as a candidate or October 1, whichever
comes later.” § 129.06(5).
Reading the lame duck provision to limit specifically the
budget-amending authority only of lame duck sheriffs spares much
of the rest of chapter 129 from obsolescence....
CopyPublished | Florida 3rd District Court of Appeal
...As the trial court correctly observed, two alternative independent
bases support the County’s course of conduct. First, Florida law sets forth a
de facto exception to the general rule that appropriation must be made by
ordinance, rather than resolution. See § 129.06(2), Fla. Stat. (2021). To that
end, section 129.06(2)(c) provides that “[t]he reserve for future construction
and improvements may be appropriated by resolution of the board for the
purposes for which the reserve was made.” § 129.06(2)(c), Fla....
...12
Department of Transportation and Public Works Road Impact Fee Program
for the Bridge Project. The Board was authorized by both statute and Charter
to adopt an ordinance amending the fiscal year 2020–2021 budget.
§ 129.06(2), Fla....
CopyAgo (Fla. Att'y Gen. 1992).
Published | Florida Attorney General Reports
Honorable Douglas Dixon Clerk of Circuit Court Saint Lucie County QUESTION: Do the restrictions contained in s.
129.06 (5), F.S., apply to a fee officer as defined in s.
218.31 (8), F.S.? SUMMARY: The restrictions contained in s.
129.06 (5), F.S., do not apply to a fee officer as defined in s.
218.31 (8), F.S., whose budget is not approved by the board of county commissioners. Section
129.06 (5), F.S., provides: Any county constitutional officer whose budget is approved by the board of county commissioners, who has not been reelected to office or is not seeking reelection, shall be prohibited from making any budget amendme...
...the fiscal year of the budget and to make an annual report of his finances upon the close of each fiscal year to the county fiscal officer for inclusion in the annual financial report of the county. Section
218.35 (3), (4), Florida Statutes (1975). Section
129.06 (5), F.S., places restrictions on county constitutional officers whose budgets are approved by the board of county commissioners when such officers have not been reelected to office or are not seeking reelection....
...Where the language of a statute is clear on its face, it must be given its plain and ordinary meaning. 10 While the clerk of the circuit court is a county constitutional officer, to the extent that he operates his office as a fee officer rather than a budget officer, the provisions of s. 129.06 (5), F.S., by its own terms, would not be applicable. Therefore, I am of the opinion that the restrictions contained in s. 129.06 (5), F.S., do not apply to fee officers as defined in s....
