State Court Funding

Regional Conflict Counsel

FAC, along with 25 individual counties, filed a complaint in July 2008, challenging the constitutionality of the 2007 legislation that seeks to require counties to fund certain elements of the newly created offices of regional conflict counsel. The complaint raises two main arguments: (1) the language of Article V, section 14, as approved by the voters in 1998, made the costs of conflict counsel a STATE, not a county responsibility; and (2) the procedure by which SB 1088 (2007) was enacted did not meet all the criteria of Article VII, section 18 thus removing the mandatory nature of the unfunded mandate.

Volusia County, on its own also filed suit against the State of Florida, challenging the counties' funding responsibilities under SB 1088. That suit was filed three days before the FAC suit.

In October, the circuit court consolidated the Leon County and the Volusia County suits into one and denied the state's motion to dismiss. The court also ordered a scheduled for cross motions for summary judgment and set a hearing date of December 12, 2008. The circuit court entered an order on December 18, 2009, concluding that the counties were not responsible for paying the "overhead" costs of the regional conflict counsels and that the Legislature failed to determine that the funding requirement served an important state interest, making the law non mandatory under the unfunded mandates provision of the state constitution. The state appealed to the First DCA and that court upheld the circuit court's opinion (click here to access the court's opinion).  The State further appealed to the Supreme Court but, on September 22, 2011, the Court issued its awaited opinion, upholding the First DCA's decision in concluding the counties' mandated funding obligation under SB 1088 was unconstitutional under Article V, section 14 of the Florida Constitution.  You can link to the opinion here.