Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission Committee Holds Meeting

On August 17, 2007, the Governmental Procedures and Structure Committee (“Committee”) of the Florida Taxation and Budget Reform Commission (“Commission”) met in Tallahassee, Florida. 

The Commission’s primary role is to recommend statutory and constitutional changes dealing with taxation and the state’s budgetary process.  In this respect, “taxation” means all public revenues and revenue-raising laws at every level of government within Florida, while “state budgetary process” means the manner in which every level of government in the state expends funds, incurs debt, assesses needs, acquires financial information and administers its fiscal affairs.  In contrast, the Committee is specifically responsible for examining governmental efficiency and productivity at both the state and local levels.

There were two presentations made during this meeting.  The first was a presentation regarding the local education budgeting process.  The second was a presentation on special taxing districts.  Senator Don Gaetz (R-Niceville) delivered the former, making five (5) primary recommendations.  He suggested that the Committee:

• Address the Bush v. Holmes decision regarding vouchers to protect the other voucher programs;

• Enact a constitutional amendment to give the legislature the authority to set the tuition and fees of universities;

• Review the issue of “uniformity” in the Constitution, in light of customizing education for students, specifically recommending statutory changes to the public education funding formula to reward “learning” rather than “seat time”;

• Provide citizens with the option to have subdivided, smaller school districts; and

• Amend class size requirements in the Constitution so that the average number of students per class would be 18, although there would not necessarily need to be exactly 18 students per class, as would currently be required by 2010. 

The Committee next heard the presentation on special taxing districts, by David Ramba and Terry Lewis from the Florida Association of Special Districts.  When asked about reserves by Commissioner Greg Turbeville, the representatives explained that special districts have no particular rules relating to the amount they must maintain in reserve, but that they tend to follow the example of cities and counties.  In response to a question about the number of special districts that have been dissolved over the years, the representatives explained that very few have been dissolved in the past decade.  However, 50-60 inactive special districts were officially removed from the records, following the special taxing district laws that went into effect. 

Commission Chairperson Patricia Levesque shared a list of topics for discussion at future meetings, and asked for members to add other topics as well.  The list included:

• Florida League of Cities recommendations from previous presentations;

• GASB 45;

• Debt caps and obligations;

• Florida School Board Association follow-up to Senator Gaetz’s recommendations;

• Florida Education Finance Program and the funding formula;

• Board of Governors and Chancellor Rosenberg follow-up to Senator Gaetz’s recommendations;

• Blaine Amendment;

• Consolidation process in Jacksonville, including advantages and disadvantages; and

• Vouchers.

Chairperson Levesque suggested that the September 20, 2007 Committee meeting in connection with the Jacksonville public hearing, might be a good time to arrange for local experts to address the group on the consolidation effort.

There being no further business before the Committee, the meeting adjourned.

The above information is intended to be a brief summary of the discussions that took place during the Committee meeting.  It is not intended to be a complete analysis of the items discussed.  Should you have any questions or require additional information, please feel free to contact this office.