By Linda Dean Cooper
BoCC got it right in their April 2, regular meeting by hiring a temporary budget officer and not depending on the Clerk’s office to prepare the BoCC budget. The Clerk’s office will continue as oversight, auditor, and custodian of funds as provided by Florida statute. Clerk of Court Danny Shipp along with his attorney Stan Griffis appeared angry as they left the meeting where the BoCC decided to hire their own budget officer. No longer intertwining budget preparation with the Clerk’s oversight. Levy will be the 53rd of 67 Florida counties to manage their budget preparations themselves.
Little is being said publicly about why the Clerk of Court felt the need to hire an attorney to appear at his side in two different BoCC meetings. Many are aware of the sudden resignation of the Clerk’s finance director, Jared Blaton, but that is an employee-employer issue. Why would the Clerk spend taxpayer money for an attorney when the BoCC is within their rights to hire a finance officer of their own and should have done so decades ago?
During the meeting, Attorney Shalley provided a lot of background:
“The Florida statutes required the County Commission to each year prepare and adopt a county budget. The statute states that you are to designate a county budget officer, and if you don’t designate a different person or employee to do that then those duties default to the Clerk in the case of Levy County, since at least 1980, the board has actually designated the Clerk to have those duties.”
Shalley went on to say, “First I want to clarify that I’m not here before you as your County Attorney giving legal guidance, but I am part of the county staff that you tasked on March 5th when returning to you with options for preparation of the FY24 25 budget. I was assisted in this by the county coordinator, the procurement coordinator, and our human resources director.”
“So, a little bit by way of background. As you will recall, the Florida statutes required the county commission to each year prepare and adopt a county budget. The statute states that you are to designate a county budget officer, and if you don’t designate a different person or employee to do that then those duties default to the Clerk in the case of Levy County, since at least 1980, the board has actually designated the clerk to have those duties.”
“After your March 5th meeting, the Chair (Desiree Mills) called the meeting with the Clerk and we had a couple of great productive meetings to talk through and determine what the options are for the board for this year. I’ll go through them quickly. They’re also in a memorandum that’s in the backup to this item.”
“So, first, there are two options that would involve these duties remaining with the Clerk. The first option is for the clerk to hire a budget officer. The clerk has put that position out and has been engaged in interviews, and he’s prepared to do that option if that’s what the board chooses.”
“The second option is kind of a backup to that, but as you all know, sometimes it’s hard to hire high-level professional positions, so if the clerk is unable to hire a budget officer, the clerk has talked to his Clerk’s association as well as some surrounding county clerks, and has garnered a little bit of outside assistance to supplement his existing staff in order to get a budget prepared for the county this year. So that’s option #2.”
“We looked into option #3, which is I will say options three and four would take the path of the board of County Commission determining that the budget functions should be transferred over to the board side. Staff did a little research and I believe it’s 52 of Florida’s 67 counties have opted to go that direction and the remaining of the counties still have the clerk doing the budget functions. I do want to state, and I think you all know, the budget functions are different from the Clerk’s which are kind of called the finance duties as auditor and custodian of funds. Those are duties that the board can’t take over. They are vested in the Clerk by virtue of the Constitution. So, moving back to options three and four, which again would have the board taking on the budget duties, option three looked into having the board contract with an independent contractor to provide budget officer services, but we weren’t able to find any county that’s done that. And, quite frankly, because of how intertwined the budget is with all of the other functions and you need to use county software. It’s just not the type of thing that lends itself to that. So, we didn’t really see that as a viable option.”
“Option four has two parts. First, this would be the board hiring a county budget officer. Most counties have done that as a permanent position, but quite frankly, this year, since we’re already in the budget season, there’s not enough time for staff to develop a job description, and conduct the hiring process, and when we get the budget done while doing that.”
“So the second option is to hire an employee in a temporary position. Your adopted personnel policies and procedures allow you to do that and to be prepared for this item, and whichever option that the board chooses, the former county finance officer has agreed to serve in that position, a time-limited, temporary position through the end of this fiscal year for the primary purpose of getting the budget. Prompted so that the contract is signed. If the board chooses to accept it and go that route, you will also need to adopt a resolution that’s in your backup, that transfers those budget duties back over to the board side.”
“The other thing that needs to be worked out; is we’ve been having discussions with the Clerk’s office. The county uses a software program called ADG, and it’s a little unknown at this time whether the budget functions can easily be extracted from the finance functions. So that’s something that needs to be worked out, or the board may have to acquire its own software to make that happen, so staff will continue to work on that if that’s the option you choose The Clerk of Court will still remain with his normal duties and keep careful watch over the BoCC and its spending at this point.”
The BoCC unanimously decided to hire the Clerk’s former finance director, Jared Blanton as their temporary budget officer to prepare the FY24-25 budget. The contract is through September 30, 2024. A permanent position will be created if that’s the direction the BoCC decides to take.
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Posted April 15, 2024
