by J. Brooks Terry
Staff Writer
For years Florida municipal courts waited with bated breath as the onset of Article Five Revision Seven to the Florida Constitution approached. But roughly nine months after that unprecedented policy change became effective, local opinion remains largely supportive of it.
The revision shifted controlling interest and fiduciary responsibility of all municipal court systems under State domain.
Duval County Clerk of Court Jim Fuller was among the more vocal last year who expressed concerns that Article Five might simply make it too difficult to run a productive courthouse.
“But it’s been okay,” said Fuller. “Looking back, I think people were mostly just apprehensive about changing the way we do things. That’s always a little scary and it’s natural to feel that way. But now we’re mostly pleased in the way things have been running.”
Mostly, but not completely. Fuller said some Article Five “tweaking” needs to take place before things completely settle in the Clerk’s Office.
“It was a big bill, a massive bill that did a lot of things,” he said. “All of the clerks now are in a position where we need to understand what’s going well and what’s not working with it. It wouldn’t be any different for any other bill like this.”
Among the changes Fuller wants to see: more flexibility when comes to setting an annual budget.
“That’s really the only major issue on the table now,” he said. “But, it does need to be addressed.”
Fuller said that when preparing those budgets, clerks from across the state have to follow guidelines that may be too rigid.
“We aren’t allowed anything more than a 103 percent increase over expenditures from the previous year,” he said. “That’s pretty tough because there are so many things outside of my control. What if there is a union mandated pay increase? What if health care goes up? If more judges are brought in, I have to have more staff to account for that.
“Salaries make up 80 percent of my budget and there are no provisions for those kinds of things.”
But Fuller said continuing debates in Tallahassee may help loosen the necessary purse strings.
“And I’m pretty confident it’s going to work out. So far no one seems to have any problem with looking at it,” he said. “We would obviously provide any necessary documentation, but just to have that kind of flexibility, if you absolutely need it, would be very nice.
“I need to be able to make a budget that can address the things I have no control over. I don’t have that much of a problem beyond that.”