- April 24, 2024
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Updated Aug. 19
by: News Service of Florida
A state appeals court on Monday, Aug. 17, rejected a challenge by Volusia County to a 2018 constitutional amendment that addressed county offices of sheriff, tax collector, property appraiser, supervisor of elections and clerk of circuit court. The voter-approved amendment, in part, prevents counties from abolishing the offices and requires that the offices be elected.
Volusia County for decades has operated under a charter that established county departments whose leaders performed the jobs, according to the ruling by a three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal. The sheriff, property appraiser, supervisor of elections and clerk of circuit court have been elected, but the tax collector has been appointed.
The county filed a lawsuit after the 2018 constitutional amendment passed, arguing, in part, that the changes should not apply to its already-existing structure. But a Leon County circuit judge ruled against Volusia County last year, and the appeals court agreed that the changes were not improperly retroactive.
“This amendment is not ‘retroactive’ in the sense of reaching back in time to invalidate what went before or to attach new legal consequences to actions already completed,” said the opinion, written by Judge Susan Kelsey and joined fully by Chief Judge Stephanie Ray and partly by Judge Scott Makar. “This amendment effected a prospective change, giving the county a deadline of Jan. 5, 2021 to comply, expressly beginning ‘with respect to the qualifying for and the holding of the primary and general elections for county constitutional officers in 2020.’ The amendment required the county only to alter its future structure for county constitutional offices, which makes the amendment prospective and not retroactive. The amendment attaches no new legal consequences to the county’s 1970 charter amendments or its past actions or operations consistent with those provisions.”
