Fla. Stat. § 28.36
Budget procedure
Redline — January 1, 2011 → current.View current text →
Current — January 1, 2021
As of January 1, 2011
There is established a budget procedure for preparing budget requests for funding for the court-related functions of the clerks of the court.
There is established a budget procedure for the court-related functions of the clerks of the court.
(1) Each clerk of court shall prepare a budget request for the last quarter of the county fiscal year and the first three quarters of the next county fiscal year. The proposed budget shall be prepared, summarized, and submitted by the clerk in each county to the Florida Clerks of Court Operations Corporation in the manner and form prescribed by the corporation to meet the requirements of law. Each clerk shall forward a copy of his or her budget request to the Supreme Court. The budget requests must be provided to the corporation by October 1 of each year.
(2) Each clerk shall include in his or her budget request a projection of the amount of court-related fees, service charges, and any other court-related clerk fees which will be collected during the proposed budget period. If the corporation determines that the proposed budget is limited to the standard list of court-related functions in s. 28.35(3)(a) and the projected court-related revenues are less than the proposed budget, the clerk shall increase all fees, service charges, and any other court-related clerk fees and charges to the maximum amounts specified by law or the amount necessary to resolve the deficit, whichever is less.
(3) Each clerk shall include in his or her budget request the number of personnel and the proposed budget for each of the following core services:
(a) Circuit criminal.
(b) County criminal.
(c) Juvenile delinquency.
(d) Criminal traffic.
(e) Circuit civil.
(f) County civil.
(g) Civil traffic.
(h) Probate.
(i) Family.
(j) Juvenile dependency.Central administrative costs shall be allocated among the core-services categories.
(4) The budget request must identify the service units to be provided within each core service. The service units shall be developed by the corporation, in consultation with the Supreme Court, the Chief Financial Officer, and the appropriations committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
(5) The budget request must propose a unit cost for each service unit. The corporation shall provide a copy of each clerk’s budget request to the Supreme Court.
(6) The corporation shall review each individual clerk’s prior-year expenditures, projected revenue, proposed unit costs, and the proposed budget for each of the core-services categories. The corporation shall compare each clerk’s prior-year expenditures and unit costs for core services with a peer group of clerks’ offices having a population of a similar size and a similar number of case filings. If the corporation finds that the expenditures, unit costs, or proposed budget of a clerk is significantly higher than those of clerks in that clerk’s peer group, the corporation shall require the clerk to submit documentation justifying the difference in each core-services category. Justification for higher expenditures may include, but is not limited to, collective bargaining agreements, county civil service agreements, and the number and distribution of courthouses served by the clerk. If the expenditures and unit costs are not justified, the corporation shall recommend a reduction in the funding for that core-services category in the budget request to an amount similar to the peer group of clerks or to an amount that the corporation determines is justified.
(7) The corporation shall complete its review and adjustments to the clerks’ budget requests and make its recommendations to the Legislature and the Supreme Court by December 1 each year.
(8) The Chief Financial Officer shall review the proposed unit costs associated with each clerk of court’s budget request and make recommendations to the Legislature. The Chief Financial Officer may conduct any audit of the corporation or a clerk of court as authorized by law. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court may request an audit of the corporation or any clerk of court by the Chief Financial Officer.
(9) The Legislature shall appropriate the total amount for the budgets of the clerks in the General Appropriations Act. The Legislature may reject or modify any or all of the unit costs recommended by the corporation. If the Legislature does not specify the unit costs in the General Appropriations Act or other law, the unit costs recommended by the corporation shall be the official unit costs for that budget period.
(10)(a) Beginning in the 2010-2011 fiscal year, the corporation shall release appropriations to each clerk quarterly. If funds in the Clerks of Court Trust Fund are insufficient to provide a release in a quarter in a single release, the corporation may release partial amounts for that quarter so long as the total of those partial amounts does not exceed that quarter’s release. If funds in the Clerks of Court Trust Fund are insufficient for the first quarter release, the corporation may make a request to the Governor for a trust fund loan pursuant to chapter 215. The amount of the first three releases shall be based on one quarter of the estimated budget for each clerk as identified in the General Appropriations Act.
(b) The corporation shall estimate the fourth quarter’s number of units to be performed by each clerk. The amount of the fourth-quarter release shall be based on the approved unit cost times the estimated number of units of the fourth quarter with the following adjustment: the fourth-quarter release shall be adjusted based on the first three quarter’s actual number of service units provided as reported to the corporation by each clerk. If the clerk has performed fewer service units in the first three quarters of the year compared to three quarters of the estimated number of service units in the General Appropriations Act, the corporation shall decrease the fourth-quarter release. The amount of the decrease shall equal the amount of the difference between the estimated number of service units for the first three quarters and the actual number of service units provided in the first three quarters times the approved unit cost.
(c) No adjustment for the fourth-quarter release shall be made if the clerk has performed more units than the estimate for the first three quarters.
(d) If the clerk performs fewer units in the fourth quarter than estimated by the corporation, the corporation shall decrease the first-quarter release for the clerk in the next fiscal year by the amount of the difference between the estimated number of service units for the fourth quarter and the actual number of service units performed in that quarter times the approved unit cost.
(e) The total of all releases to the clerks of court may not exceed the amount appropriated in the General Appropriations Act. If, during the year, the corporation determines that the projected releases of appropriations for service units will exceed the estimate used in the General Appropriations Act and result in statewide expenditures greater than the amount appropriated by law, the corporation shall reduce all service unit costs of all clerks by the amount necessary to ensure that service units are funded within the total amount appropriated to the clerks of court. If such action is necessary, the corporation shall notify the Legislative Budget Commission. If the Legislative Budget Commission objects to the adjustments, the Legislative Budget Commission shall adjust all service unit costs by the amount necessary to ensure that projected units of service are funded within the total amount appropriated to the clerks of court at its next scheduled meeting.
(11) The corporation may submit proposed legislation to the Governor, the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives relating to the preparation of budget requests of the clerks of court.
(1) Only those functions listed in s. 28.35(3)(a) may be funded from fees, service charges, court costs, and fines retained by the clerks of the court.
(2) Each proposed budget shall further conform to the following requirements:
(a) On or before June 1, the proposed budget shall be prepared, summarized, and submitted by the clerk in each county to the Florida Clerks of Court Operations Corporation in the manner and form prescribed by the corporation. The proposed budget must provide detailed information on the anticipated revenues available and expenditures necessary for the performance of the court-related functions listed in s. 28.35(3)(a) of the clerk’s office for the county fiscal year beginning October 1.
(b) The proposed budget must be balanced such that the total of the estimated revenues available equals or exceeds the total of the anticipated expenditures. Such revenues include revenue projected to be received from fees, service charges, court costs, and fines for court-related functions during the fiscal period covered by the budget, plus the total of unspent budgeted funds for court-related functions carried forward by the clerk of the court from the previous county fiscal year and plus the portion of the balance of funds remaining in the Clerks of the Court Trust Fund after the transfer of funds to the General Revenue Fund required pursuant to s. 28.37(4)(b) which has been allocated to each respective clerk of the court by the Florida Clerks of Court Operations Corporation. For the purposes of this paragraph, the term “unspent budgeted funds for court-related functions” means undisbursed funds included in the clerk of the courts’ budget for court related functions established pursuant to s. 28.35 and this section. The anticipated expenditures must be itemized as required by the corporation.
(3)(a) The Florida Clerks of Court Operations Corporation shall establish and manage a reserve for contingencies within the Clerks of the Court Trust Fund which must consist of an amount not to exceed 16 percent of the total budget authority for the clerks of court during the current county fiscal year, to be carried forward at the end of the fiscal year. Funds to be held in reserve include transfers of cumulative excess, as provided in s. 28.37(4)(b), from the Clerks of the Court Trust Fund and may also include revenues provided by law or moneys appropriated by the Legislature.
(b) The corporation shall provide a reporting of the balance and use of these funds during each county fiscal year as part of the corporation’s annual report submitted under s. 28.35(2)(h).
(c) The corporation may use the reserve to ensure the clerks of court can perform the court-related functions as provided in s. 28.35(3)(a). Moneys in the Clerks of the Court Trust Fund which are held in reserve may be used by the corporation under the following circumstances:
1. To offset a current deficit between the revenue available and the original budget authority. A deficit is deemed to occur when the revenue available to the clerks of court falls below the original revenue projection for that county fiscal year.
2. To provide funding for an emergency, as defined in s. 252.34(4). The emergency must have been declared by the Governor, pursuant to s. 252.36, or otherwise declared by law.
3. To provide funds in the development of the total aggregate budget of the clerks of court to ensure that a minimum continuation budget is met. For purposes of this subparagraph, a minimum continuation budget is the budget approved for the current county fiscal year or some lesser amount adopted by the corporation.
(d) To use the reserve, the corporation must request a budget amendment pursuant to s. 216.292.
(4) If a clerk of the court estimates that available funds plus projected revenues from fines, fees, service charges, and costs for court-related services are insufficient to meet the anticipated expenditures for the standard list of court-related functions in s. 28.35(3)(a) performed by his or her office, the clerk must report the revenue deficit to the corporation in the manner and form prescribed by the corporation. The corporation shall verify that the proposed budget is limited to the standard list of court-related functions in s. 28.35(3)(a). If the corporation verifies that a revenue deficit is projected, the corporation shall certify a revenue deficit and notify the Department of Revenue that the clerk is authorized to retain revenues, in an amount necessary to fully fund the projected revenue deficit, which he or she would otherwise be required to remit to the Department of Revenue for deposit into the department’s Clerks of the Court Trust Fund pursuant to s. 28.37. If a revenue deficit is projected for that clerk after retaining all of the projected collections from the court-related fines, fees, service charges, and costs, the corporation shall certify the amount of the revenue deficit to the Executive Office of the Governor and request release authority for funds from the department’s Clerks of the Court Trust Fund. Notwithstanding s. 216.192 relating to the release of funds, the Executive Office of the Governor may approve the release of funds in accordance with the notice, review, and objection procedures set forth in s. 216.177 and shall provide notice to the Department of Revenue and the Chief Financial Officer. The Department of Revenue shall request monthly distributions from the Chief Financial Officer in equal amounts to each clerk certified to have a revenue deficit, in accordance with the releases approved by the Governor.
(5) The corporation may approve increases or decreases to the previously authorized budgets approved for clerks of the court pursuant to s. 28.35 for court-related functions, if:
(a) The additional budget authority is necessary to pay the cost of performing new or additional functions required by changes in law or court rule; or
(b) The additional budget authority is necessary to pay the cost of supporting increases in the number of judges or magistrates authorized by the Legislature or increases in the use of hearing officers and senior judges assigned by the courts.
Official source: Online Sunshine (Florida Legislature). Reproduced from public-domain Florida statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.