by J. Brooks Terry
Staff Writer
Article Five is scheduled to take effect in July, but City Hall representatives say some substantial tweaking will have to happen if Duval County wants to avoid losing up to $8 million every fiscal year.
The Florida Constitution revision shifts controlling interest and fiduciary responsibility of all municipal court systems to the State.
Brad Thoburn, director of state and federal affairs for the mayor’s office, said Duval County stands to take a hit in the pocketbook for two main reasons.
“The best way to understand it is, the way Article Five is written, the State is taking revenue generated from the court system, but they’re leaving behind the responsibility to fund several different programs we have in place now,” said Thoburn.
Thoburn, who was part of Mayor John Peyton’s task force charged with examining the local impact of Article Five, said programs in jeopardy include Teen and Drug courts.
“No one is going to argue that these programs are beneficial to the City,” he said. “They exist to divert people out of the system before they wind up costing the City a lot more money in the long run. They’re doing what they’re designed to do.”
However, if the State isn’t persuaded to rewrite portions of Article Five, Thoburn said programs indirectly affiliated with the courts would come under much more scrutiny when they return to the City next year to ask for funding.
“During the next session we’ll have to make it clear the State needs to change the legislation,” said Thoburn. “That’s the most logical solution and we need to make them understand the local impact of doing something like this. I don’t think they gave that enough consideration.
Thoburn declined to speculate on the fate of any particular program, saying it was a policy call.
“I can say it’s going to put these programs in the same league as a lot of others that rely on dollars from City’s budget. There would be a lot more competition there and we, obviously, can’t fund everything if we don’t have the money.”
According to Thoburn, the second and most notable reason Duval County may lose millions is a change in the State’s revenue sharing policies, with tax refunds redirected to local municipalities.
“The State changed the revenue sharing policy in a manner that suggests they were expecting some shortfalls coming their way when, in fact, there really aren’t any coming from Duval County,” he said. “That’s where the majority of the money we’ll be out can be explained.”
Post Article Five, the City will be out approximately $5.6 million every year even if it suspends funding for all extension programs at the courthouse.
Thoburn, who said Duval County is “pretty well ahead” of other Florida counties in its assessment of Article Five’s local impact, expects there will be one more session to lobby changes.
“We’ve already approached the State with our numbers and they were a little surprised, but not completly surprised,” he said. “There was, at least, an acknowledgement, and luckily we still have some time before it is implemented.
“However, something is going to have to change — a lot more than fine tuning — because $7 or $8 million every year is a lot of money.”
Thoburn said the likelihood of the State making any changes would be contingent upon other counties stepping forward with similar concerns.
“I would expect other counties would be in our spectrum of taking a major loss and that might help persuade the State,” he said. “However, if we’re an anomaly, it probably won’t happen.”