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BCC Minutes 12/22/1997 E (Court Services (20th Judicial Circuit) Invoices)EMERGENCY MEETING OF DECEMBER 22, 1997 OF THE BOARD OF COLLIER COUNTY COHMISSIONERS and LET IT BE REMEMBERED, that the Collier County Commissioners in for the County of Collier, having conducted business herein, met on this date at 9:00 a.m. in EMERGENCY SESSION in Building "F" of the Government Complex, East Naples, Florida, with the following members present: Constantine ACTING CHAIRMAN: ABSENT: Barbara B. Berry Pamela S. Hac'Kie John C. Norris Timothy L. Hancock Timothy J. ALSO PRESENT: David C. Weigel, County Attorney Bob Fernandez, County Administrator Item #2 COURT SERVICES (20TH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT) INVOICES - APPROVED IN THE AMOUNT OF $130,763.95, PLUS ADDITIONAL EXPENSES SUBMITTED THIS DATE ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: I'd like to call to order this special meeting of the Collier County Board of Commissioners for the purpose of approval of the court services invoices. If we could stand, please, for the pledge of allegiance. (Pledge of allegiance recited in unison.) ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: At this time, I'd like to ask our county administrator, Mr. Fernandez, please? MR. FERNANDEZ: Thank you, Madam Chairman. This morning we have convened this emergency meeting to consider the payment of outstanding invoices. The current amount that we have before you is $130,763.95. This is for expenses for the court administration. I understand from this morning's conversation that we have additional invoices that I would recommend that we add to this total, so that we capture everything that's current as of this point in time. This action is being recommended to you this morning as a result of notice we received on Friday that the court had entered an order in the pending matter before it regarding these -- regarding the contract between the Board of County Commissioners and the court administrator. In that -- you may wish to have the county attorney elaborate on this, but in that, the order did not give us final guidance on the disposition of these matters. We felt that it was appropriate to address the pending invoices in order that we can have the additional time to work on a permanent solution to the issue. With that, I would ask the county attorney to apprise us of more recent developments as of this morning on other events affecting this decision today. Mr. Weigel. MR. WEIGEL: Thank you. And good morning, Commissioners. I would like to have chief assistant county attorney Ramiro Hanalich describe for you some of the details of what we have learned of the disposition of court proceedings in the second district court of appeals which we were apprised late Friday afternoon. Subsequent to which, I will speak a little bit on a new lawsuit that was received by the county this morning. MR. HANALICH: Good morning, Commissioners. For the record, Ramiro Hanalich, chief assistant county attorney. Very briefly, in conversation with the office of the chief judge on Friday, the order that was entered in this action as described to me was that Judge Starnes's mandamns action had been denied, as well as his request for attorney fees in this action. That the -- Mr. Brock's request for his writ of prohibition had not been ruled upon, but he was allowed to supplement his pleadings in that case. And - COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Ramiro, could you translate that in that a writ of mandamus is please order them to pay the bills right now and that was denied? HR. MANALICH: Essentially, yes. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And the writ of prohibition was please don't let them pay the bills unless they adopt a budget. MR. HANALICH: Well, obviously, you know, Representative Saunders here, who is the -- acting as counsel for Mr. Brock is here and can describe his part of the case. But essentially, in that action the clerk, as I understand it, was seeking to prevent the chief judge from ordering the payment of certain specific bills having to do with the court study, is my understanding. Then Mr. Saunders can clarify, if Hr. necessary. Just to finish, the other part that the court acted upon was Brock had sought to bring the county into the case into those matters pending through an interpleader action, and to obtain attorney fees against the county. Those two things were also denied. Host important about this is that apparently there was no reasoning or opinion attached to this order. So for that reason, that does leave the parties with some degree of doubt as to the reah and extent. Also, there's another action still pending in the Second District Court of Appeals which is Mr. Brock's. But obviously, you know, they have registered to speak and can comment to you as to their opinion about the action. MR. WEIGEL: Thank you, Ramiro. On early Friday afternoon, the clerk has filed a lawsuit in the local court system here in Collier County entitled Dwight Brock, Clerk, as plaintiff versus Collier County and the Honorable Hugh E. Starnes, Chief Judge of the 20th Judicial Circuit. It is a complaint seeking declaratory judgment and supplemental relief, looking for declaratory judgment on -- and I quote, the existence or nonexistence of an immunity power, privilege or right and the validity of a contract or instrument in writing. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What's that first one, immunity power? What does that mean? MR. WEIGEL: Well, I don't know yet, because I just got the complaint about ten minutes ago. It was served on the Board of County Commissioners this morning. And beyond the initial complaint are included some discovery elements. We have Interrogatories posed upon Chairman Hancock and budget director Mike Smykowski. We have a first request for production of all documents related to the matter from March of '97 through November of '97; such documents have already, the use think, been reviewed through public records request. We have a request for admissions and a motion to disqualify all the judges of the 20th Judicial Circuit included with this packet of material. Without reviewing this morning again the civil trial rules, I believe that with the accompaniment of these discovery requests, county will have actually a somewhat extended time if it wishes to that to respond to the complaint from the normal 20-day period. Notwithstanding which the question may be, well, what does that mean? What does this new court action mean in relation to the court proceedings already in the second district court of appeals? Well, I'm not prescient in this regard, but there may be an opportunity for the plaintiff to use this with the -- with or in complimentary to the proceedings with the second DCA. I don't know if that will cause additional delay for the termination of the heretofore expedited issues before the second DCA, but this is a new lawsuit, and until a court is determined and there are judges established for this to hear it, it will be problematical and certainly a part of the -- part of the element of review before this is -- for us to respond and for this to be determined in a court of law. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: It sounds like that the crux of that case -- and I am learning as we go along here, but it sounds like the crux of the case is since they want to interview Mr. Smykowski, it makes me think they want facts on the question of whether or not a budget was -- a line item budget was adopted by Collier County for the judiciary. Does that sound like what they're seeking? A declaratory judgment __ or maybe I should ask Mr. Saunders. MR. SAUNDERS: Madam Chairman and members, my name is Butt Saunders with the Woodward, Pires, Lombardo law firm. The crux of the matter is that we are trying to establish whether or not a budget was approved. We believe one had not been approved. And that's the purpose of the discovery. Our total objective is to get a budget approved so that the vendors can be paid in a timely fashion without having to come back every month asking for a stop gap to measure or asking for the board to approve the budget. That's the total purpose of filing the declaratory judgment action. That action was actually filed on Thursday. We were not able get service until this morning. And we are hoping that that item will be expedited so that we can get a final resolution of it. In terms of the district court of appeal, the court has denied Judge Starnes' petition for writ of mandamus. That really was the heart of that particular action. Clerk of Court Dwight Brock was concerned that there may be an order entered that would be violative of Florida statutes, and that was for the purpose of filing the writ of prohibition, which really becomes less significant at this point in light of the fact that the mandamus action has been denied and in light of the fact that there's a declaratory judgment action pending in circuit court in Collier County -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Let me see if I get this. The Judge had said dear court, force them to pay, and that was the writ of mandamus. MR. SAUNDERS: That is correct. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And the clerk had said dear court, don't let them be forced to pay, so that was the writ of prohibition. MR. SAUNDERS: That is correct. And also not to -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So the prohibition is irrelevant now. MR. SAUNDERS: It becomes less relevant. I suspect that the District Court of Appeal is really not interested in dealing with this issue. I would suspect that since there is a declaratory judgment action in Collier County that will resolve the issue, that you're not my Mr. going to see any further action from the district court, would be guess. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: And then I guess I keep getting to the practical question of unless I misunderstood it, we've already had Smykowski on this record tell us that we did not get a line item budget. MR. SAUNDERS: That is correct. On November 25th, there's a statement in the transcript that indicates -- and I believe Mr. Smykowski will probably acknowledge that -- but there's a statement the the now is __ that the detail budget, the line item budget, was not presented to County Commission. I think the terminology that was used was that summary was presented, which was the lump sum. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So, Mr. Weigel, the status then right is the only thing pending in the second district is that the clerk allowed to file supplemental materials on what motion? It just says even Mr. the MR. WEIGEL: I don't know. You've got the order. We don't have that yet. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Actually, Mr. Fernandez gave it to me, Weigel. MR. SAUNDERS: The problem is that the writ of prohibition, writ of mandamus, these are extraordinary writs that are somewhat rare, and they're unique circumstances under which they can be filed, and no one likes to deal with those types of extraordinary writs. The declaratory judgment action is something that the courts are much more familiar with. Those are much more routine. So we believe that through that action this issue will ultimately be resolved, and not through the use of extraordinary writs to the district court of appeal. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So the local courts, but no 20th -- assuming that they agree that none of them should hear it, which makes sense to me -- the local courts, through the declaratory judgment, which will be the local judges will look at Mr. Smykowski's testimony, the Chairman's testimony and the other discovery and say you did or you didn't adopt a line item budget. MR. SAUNDERS: That is correct. We asked the local judges to recuse themselves because we don't want to put the local circuit court judges, for example, in direct opposition to one of the parties in the litigation, which is the chief judge of the circuit. So it was reasonable, we believe, to ask all those judges to recuse themselves. But what we're asking for basically in this action is for the County Commission to approve the budget so that we can get this over with. We have also, as a stop gap measure, if necessary, we've asked the court to enter an order directing the clerk to issue those checks. By getting a court to enter an order, that eliminates any criminal or civil liability that the clerk of courts may be exposed to for writing checks without having a line item budget. So we've asked for those two things, but quite frankly, the quickest and easiest thing would be for the County Commission to approve that line item budget, and then I suspect that you wouldn't see us here again on that issue. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Mr. Weigel, might we have civil and criminal liability for approving line -- these particular expenditures without a line item budget? MR. WEIGEL: I firmly believe that you do not. When you look at the statutes, 126.08 and 09 -- I think it's 08 refers to elected officials -- it's really a criminal intent statute. It talks about willingly and knowingly doing the, in quote, illegal act. And I dare say that the record will show, this most recent budget proceeding and the one the year before and the year before, that there was no willing and knowing action that was criminally illegal pursuant to that statute. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Makes sense to me. I mean, if we've done something wrong, we just don't know it. My other question is, I'm trying to think what Judge Starnes' response might be, because as clear as I think this is, that we just need to adopt a line item budget, Mr. Fernandez has explained to me before sort of the bad news if we do that. What is the bad news of adopting a line item budget? What's wrong with doing that? MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chairman, adopting a line item budget puts us in the posture of having the expenditures reviewed against rules of expenditure; for example, purchasing rules and personnel rules. Either you have the option of following the Florida statutes which define the responsibility to the county administrator and require those rules to be those under the county administrator -- the personnel rules that are under the county administrator and the purchasing rules -- where you set up a different set of rules which essentially creates a category of employees that are governed by a different set of rules than those under the county administrator and a different classification of employees; therefore, violating the Chapter 125 provision that employees of the Board of County Commissioners are under the authority of the county administrator. We understand that the original agreement was entered into two years ago in order to address this problem of employees being under the authority of the county administrator, but yet not really being held subject to the rules that all other employees under the county administrator -- or at that time the county manager -- are held. So you have that conflict of the requirements of the statute and the definition of the county administrator and your own ordinance, how those responsibilities are defined and the implications of adopting separate line item budget that calls for a review of those rules. counties for ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: Do we know what they do in other in this regard? MR. FERNANDEZ: I called the clerk from Hanatee County on this matter and described our agreement to him, and his response was, "That's essentially the way I've been trying to get it set up here years." COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But there are no other counties other than us, Charlotte and Lee, maybe -- MR. SAUNDERS: I believe so. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: -- that do it this way. others do it the way we used to do it two years ago. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: Which was? The entire 64 COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Which was that they brought in a budget, we approved it just like we scrutinized the -- just like this year when we went through the public defenders -- prosecutors, do they get the computers or did -- you know, we went through it line by line. And for my vote and what I recall about the two years ago is exactly what Mr. Fernandez said is -- I remember that there was something going on in the probation office, that some -- you know, this is when we were in the middle of all that sexual harassment stuff and there were allegations of sexual harassment went on in the probation office. And in order to know what the rules were, we wanted it to be clear that those guys work for the state, they don't work for the county. And that was the reason for the break. But what I'm trying to get to now is, if the question is merely -- if we are down to the question of did they or didn't they -- us __ adopt a budget, a line item budget, and if that is the sole question, we already know the answer to that based on our own budget director. So why would we continue -- why would we now have three sets of taxpayer paid lawyers fighting over a question that we know the answer to? MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chairman, I would offer that the answer to that question is not as clear cut as that. A line item budget could include only one line item. The agreement calls for a single line item budget. We argue that's what we have. We have a single line item budget. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: That's news to me. MR. SAUNDERS: Madam Chairman, can I make two points? One, in reference to how other counties do this, I think the important information for this board is that the association that represents the clerks around the State of Florida has intervened on behalf of the Clerk of Courts, Dwight Brock in the Second District Court of Appeal. They agreed with Dwight Brock in his position. So I would submit that I think that that's evidence of where we need to be in terms of this particular budget. The issue of the agreement, the agreement specifically says that -- or specifically contemplates changes to a budget. I can't tell you which paragraph it is, because I don't have the agreement in front of me -- I'm sure that the county attorney does -- but it talks in terms of the county commission approving amendments to a budget. And I would submit to you that the agreement itself -- whether it's valid or not is another question, but the agreement itself contemplates a line item budget that can be amended by this commission from time to time, just like other line item budgets. So I disagree respectfully with the county manager in that analysis of you can have just one line item, which is the total lump sum of three million, eighty-nine thousand dollars. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: But why would we want to do that, even if we could? Because it Why would we want to have a one line item budget? if the judges decide they want to spend money on robes instead of carpet, they should come in with a budget amendment, just like everybody else. Why would we want a one-line budget? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Because for the very reason that we set up in the first place, is because they're not really our employees. The court system's employees are funded through this office. And that is the reason why we don't -- we should not be in there making item by item, line by line a budget for them. They should be doing that. And not is that's the heart of this matter. It's -- we don't make line item budget for the school system either. And it's -- although that's a perfect analogy, but it's similar in that these are not our employees under our control, and, therefore, what Mr. Fernandez maintains is that we have a single line item budget for those employees. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But '- ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: Let me ask one further question: What the difference between this particular office and the sheriff's office? COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: A statute, for one thing. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: Or any other constitutional officer? of MR. FERNANDEZ: There -- the other constitutional officers are separately elected and their employees are separate from the Board County Commissioners. I think the difference is we have statutory guidance on -- COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: That's it. MR. FERNANDEZ: -- how to budget for the others. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: There's a statute for the sheriff, a statute for the clerk, and a statute for the tax collector and the property appraiser. I don't think there's a statute for the supervisor of elections. Am I right about that? MR. WEIGEL: I don't know. MR. FERNANDEZ: I think there is, and I think the statute says that the supervisor of elections is allowed to use the same account structure as county departments, or some language to that effect. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But they all have a process. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: One other thing, though. What -- in this whole litany of people and charges that we have here that need to be addressed, who would challenge the clerk in regard to payment of these particular bills? Who's going to challenge him on this, that it's legal or not legal? MR. SAUNDERS: I'll be more than happy to attempt to address that, if you would like. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: I'll give you 30 seconds. MR. SAUNDERS: Starting when? ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: Right now. MR. SAUNDERS: Madam Chairman, in reality, there may not be anyone to challenge a specific expenditure or a group of expenditures, and that's really not the issue. The issue is that there are statutory prohibitions that provide for criminal and civil liability if the clerk makes these payments without making them subject to a line item budget. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: Well, then, let me ask you, Mr. Saunders, why is it an issue now and why wasn't it an issue two years ago? MR. SAUNDERS: The reason it was not an issue two years ago is simply -- and Clerk of Court Brock has indicated this -- he was under the impression a line item budget had been approved for court administration in the past. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: For two years he was under the impression -- MR. SAUNDERS: That is correct. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: -- there was a line item budget? MR. SAUNDERS: Since 1995, for the 1995, '96 cycle being the first one. He was under that impression. He discovered many, many months ago that that was not the case, that he was incorrect in that. He brought that to the county staff's attention, he's brought it to the county commission's attention to say these payments were made - perhaps they were made by mistake in the past. That's not justification to continue making them in the future, once the mistake was discovered by the Clerk of Courts. All the clerk is trying to do is make sure that these items are the paid in a timely manner and make sure that he's not violating any civil or criminal laws making those payments. And that's really simple bottom line to the whole issue. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: Mr. Norris? COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Saunders, you indicated that the Clerk of Courts brought this to the attention of the County Commission? I don't know about the rest of the County Commission, but -- ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: I don't recall. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: -- no one ever brought it to my attention. I read about it in the newspaper here some weeks ago, and that was the first I ever heard about it. If it was such a problem, in fact, why did not the clerk contact the County Commission and head this problem off? Secondly, if what the clerk says is correct and he has been violating the law for two years, is he not criminally liable already? And if so, who has standing to file charges against him? Would that be any citizen? Does it have to be certain specific people who can file charges? MR. SAUNDERS: Let me try to take these in some order. The Clerk of Courts met with the Chairman of the County Commission to discuss this, and has discussed this with county staff in the past, so I did the not mean to imply that he physically came before the entire County Commission and presented the County Commission with the issue, but issue had been discussed with the Chairman of the County Commission. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Do you know when that would have been? MR. SAUNDERS: I'd have to defer to -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: That would have been after the story was appearing in the newspaper. MR. SAUNDERS: No, it was -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I have never seen a memo from the clerk's office on this, I've never had a telephone call, I've never had a personal contact, I've never had any kind of contact up to this date from the clerk's office. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: Lest anybody think different, neither have I. in to ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: Nor have I. MR. SAUNDERS: Commissioner Norris, our understanding -- my understanding is that the first communication with the chairman was August, which would have been before all of this became a public debate, before it became a debate in the newspaper. That may be an issue for discovery. That would be somewhat unfortunate if we have get to that stage, but that may be how that's all unraveled. In terms of filing complaints, I'll let you discuss that with your county attorney in terms of what the issues are in terms of filing complaints. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Usually the lawyer for the guy who might get filed against doesn't tell you how to do it. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: I think we'll handle that anyway. Thank you, Mr. Saunders. MR. SAUNDERS: Thank you, Chairman Berry, thank you, Commissioner. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Mr. Weigel, one more question? ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: Sure. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Can you tell -- and I appreciate that you just got this this morning, but can you tell, from what you have, we are down to the -- if the question -- if the sole request remaining is whether or not a line item budget was adopted by the County Commission, or are there other substantive -- I know there are other procedural issues, but are there other substantive issues remaining? Is that the sole question? MR. WEIGEL: Commissioner, I just can't tell you that that is the sole question, because that which has been filed with the Supreme Court and which is remanded down to the district court and that which has been in the district court has many allegations, many issues; the central issue, however, being the appropriateness of making payment and/or being ordered to make payment and the decision not to make payment. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I guess then if that's not going to -- I have one more question and that is, Mr. Fernandez, is it -- or maybe it's Mr. Weigel -- is it legally defensible that if we are correct in our position that we adopted a line item budget with one line, that is sufficient to make it clear that these employees are state employees and not county employees; does that solve that problem? MR. WEIGEL: Well, it goes a long way to do that, because the more that we as a board, as a county lay out indices of control and of we And connection to those employees, when the lawsuit comes, whether it's personal liability or sexual harassment or injury in the workplace, whatever nature it may be, either from or involving one of those employees, typically also including a purported deep pocket, the Collier County -- the county, the more strings of attachment that have, the less ability we have to avoid the potential liability. we fought that battle with the sheriff lawsuits for many years where the Sheriff's Department has been sued and in tandem, Collier County has been sued also. And we've argued and argued, and there's still federal case law against this position indicating that notwithstanding that we don't hire and fire the employees of the sheriff's office, the deputies, we have nothing to do with their training, nothing to do with their activities on a daily basis, by the sole standpoint that we, pursuant to statute, fund them through the process of the Board of County Commissioners, has kept us involved in lawsuits until just this fall when we've been able to prevail in court, not by citing a case that would get us out, but just by rule of reason that has gotten us on out of three of those kinds of lawsuits. And that kind of thing manifests itself with this relationship too, I would suggest. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: Mr. Fernandez, do we have any speakers this item, please? MR. FERNANDEZ: Walter the Yes, Madam Chairman. First speaker is Jay Cross. MR. CROSS: Good morning, Commissioners. I'm Jay Cross. I'm executive assistant of the Clerk of Courts. Mr. Brock could not be here and asked me if I would encourage you to take the appropriate actions whereby the bills for our vendors can be paid. We have been trying to do this ever since the meetings began in August with county staff. We thought we had arrived at a solution to reaching an agreement on October the 29th whereby all of these things would have been taken care of. On October the 31st, the clerk was notified that that agreement would not be going forward and that is in fact where the issue has laid since that time. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: What was that agreement? What were the terms of that? MR. CROSS: We presented -- Mr. Brock presented you all with that agreement, I believe, Commissioner Mac'Kie, the last time we were before you. It was prepared by Ramiro Manalich, the assistant county attorney. It was signed by Mr. Brock, by Mr. Smykowski, by Deputy was and Court Administrator Mr. Middlebrook, and by the clerk himself. It the clerk's feeling at the time that that would have solved the problem and would have complied with all of the Florida statutes allowed us to do the pre-audit function which is required by law. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: I believe that did not come forward to the commission -- COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I don't know about it. MR. CROSS: No. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: -- if I recall. Is that -- am I not correct in that? That particular one? MR. FERNANDEZ: Madam Chair, that was not brought forward -- ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: That's right. MR. FERNANDEZ: -- to the agenda on a decision that I made at that time. It would have required amendment to your county administrator ordinance. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Could we see it? I'd like to see it. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: I thought they handed it to us. Mr. Brock handed it to us, I believe, at the day of the meeting. MR. CROSS: I'd be glad to provide you with a copy of it, Commissioner. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: What kind of amendment -- I'm sorry to interrupt your presentation. What kind of amendment to the county administrator's ordinance would be required by this agreement? MR. FERNANDEZ: We have recognized another category of employees that are not -- that are under the Board of County Commissioners yet not under the authority of the county administrator. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: And I understand that's the fundamental issue, okay. Okay. MR. FERNANDEZ: Correct. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: Continue, Mr. Cross. MR. CROSS: Thank you. The clerk is excited about the possibility that the board was willing to schedule a emergency hearing in order to pay the vendors. You will hear from Mr. Mitchell, who is the finance director, that we have already placed in process the ability whereby we will be able do that today, depending on your action. We encourage you, however, please do this. Please adopt the budget. As soon as we get the line item budget adopted, we won't be back before you, we'll be able to do what's required of the clerk's office. Again, thank you for your time and your attention. I encourage you, let's deal with this so that we can get by these things. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Mr. Cross? MR. CROSS: Yes, sir. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: If it was the intention of the clerk to ask us to cooperate and pass a line item budget, was it really the best course of action then to file a suit that we just saw this morning to force us to do that? HR. CROSS: At the time, Commissioner Norris, that we filed that declarative action, we had no knowledge that the second district wouldn't make a decision. It seemed to us to be the only way we could get these vendors paid. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: The timing was -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Well, it seems to me that you have another way and you're asking us to do it today. HR. CROSS: We tried to do that, I believe it was at your meeting on December the 16th and the commission chose not to hear us that day. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: If we did that today, would you withdraw the lawsuit that's filed? MR. CROSS: I could not speak for Mr. Brock regarding that, Commissioner Mac'Kie. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Mr. Saunders, would you have advice to Hr. us Brock about whether or not that lawsuit would be necessary? HR. SAUNDERS: We would have to take a look at the specific action. And I can assure you that immediately upon Mr. Brock's return, we would evaluate that, and if it would be appropriate for to dismiss the lawsuit, we would do that. But we'd need to evaluate exactly where we are at that point. So I can't make a commitment this morning that we would dismiss that lawsuit. But I will tell you that the heart of the lawsuit will be eliminated by the approval of the budget. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: We're going to have the taxpayers paying you and Mr. Perez, God bless you. We're going to have the taxpayers paying Mr. Weigel and Mr. Hanalich, and then we're going to have the taxpayers paying whoever is representing Judge Starnes. So three sets of public lawyers. Surely you guys could drop this if we could adopt a budget. Just my little please -- COMMISSIONER NORRIS: I don't believe that's in front of us today. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: No. COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well, we could certainly do it. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: Let's continue. Next speaker, please. MR. FERNANDEZ: Next speaker is Jim Hitchell. MR. HITCHELL: Commissioners, good morning. For the record, Jim Mitchell, the director of finance and accounting. On Friday afternoon we submitted to the budget director a list of outstanding invoices and we spent the entire weekend getting those into the system so if you did approve the action today, we would be able to cut the checks and have them in the vendors' hands this afternoon. In the process of doing that, we did discover additional invoices that were -- they got presented Friday afternoon, so the total now that we're looking for approval is $133,592.75. And I also wanted to address one comment that was made by the county administrator, Mr. Fernandez, dealing with a line item budget having a single line item. If we're being asked to cut expenditures out of that, there's a problem with the uniform accounting system. The uniform accounting system addresses different object codes and things like this. And what's adopted is strictly a budgeted transfer, so there's no way that I would be able to agree that that represents or in any way constitutes a budget. If there's any questions that you have for me, I'd be more than happy to take them. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: Any other speakers, Hr. Fernandez? MR. FERNANDEZ: No, sir. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: I'll make a motion that we approve the attached list of outstanding invoices for payment, along with the additional ones referenced earlier in the meeting. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I have a question on the motion. Mr. Fernandez, when we were asked to do this earlier when the number was smaller, you had advised us not to do that. What's changed? MR. FERNANDEZ: We had the matter before the Second District Court of Appeals. We felt that it was not appropriate to take action at that time with this matter pending. With the news that the court has issued an order on the subject, we felt that that was no longer the case, and, therefore, it was appropriate to consider the funding of those pending invoices. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Obviously I've been wanting to pay them and I'm going to support it, but I don't see that circumstances have changed, since not only is that matter still pending, there's an additional matter pending. We have two lawsuits now instead of One. That doesn't seem to me to be the good news. MR. FERNANDEZ: I wasn't aware of the lawsuit this morning, that we received service of this morning. COMHISSIONER MAC'KIE: So does that change your advice to us now that you know that there's a second lawsuit pending? MR. FERNANDEZ: I don't know. MR. WEIGEL: I'll be happy to comment, and that is what we just discussed concerning what would appear to be potential liability, the county -- should the county enter further into the budget process is still something clearly for the Board's consideration to make that determination. But it's upon those kinds of things that the county administrator and I -- and I appreciate that we've been in very close contact on this -- had been in unison with our recommendations to you up to this point and continue to be so. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I know that Commissioner Norris has quickly made that motion to preempt my making a motion that we adopt a budget, but just -- ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: No. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: I would have -- COHMISSIONER NORRIS: No, we have a grand opening at Sugden Park that I want to get to at 10:00, that's why I made the motion in a rapid fashion. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: Well, the fact is I know that it would not to and of and the pass anyway, but just in case anybody's interested, I would like to pass a budget. All we need to do is adopt the budget as it was submitted, which Mr. Smykowski has on a computer disc that he could hand to us right now and we could adopt. Then this goes away. COHMISSIONER NORRIS: But Commissioner Hac'Kie, the Clerk has sued us to force us to do just that, and if that's the way he wants conduct his business and his relationship with the Board of County Commissioners, then that's the way it's going to be done. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But just because one -- one elected official chooses a path doesn't mean that we can't rise above it in the interest of avoiding all this public expense of three sets lawyers paid by taxpayers, in the interest of avoiding that, if no other reason. COMMISSIONER NORRIS: Would you second the motion so that we Can '- ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: I will second your motion. I will also add, I'm seconding the motion to pay these bills because they need to be paid at this point in time. I hesitated did not support doing this in the past because of the lawsuits in District Court of Appeals. I will tell you that I will continue -- they'll have to bring these back before -- as far as I'm concerned, they will have to continue to bring these back before me on a separate item and we'll have to do the stop gap measure. But I'm very reluctant to do that after today due to this second lawsuit that has I'm pay now been filed. If you're going to keep filing the lawsuits, then going to be more reluctant to pay these bills. I mean, that's where it stands. I'm willing to go ahead and these people today. They should be paid. But if you're going to keep filing these lawsuits and spending taxpayer money, and I call it frivolous lawsuits, then this is absolutely ridiculous, but I believe that we can go ahead and pay these bills today, and I'm very happy to do so and second Mr. Norris's motion to do so. But from now on, we'll have to do it on a -- you know, if it's month by month or whatever, I guess that's it. I'm not going to adopt a line item budget until we clarify this matter. We have employee problems. Pam, it's not clear. COHMISSIONER HAC'KIE: But 63 other counties do it that way. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: I don't care what 63 other counties do. provide for. COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: But they do it right. How do you know? Because that is what the statutes Because I can read law books. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: Well, congratulations, you know, somewhere along the line -- but the amazing thing is, Pam, if you were reading law books, why didn't you read them two years ago and find this problem? COMMISSIONER HAC'KIE: It would have been better if I had. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: Yeah, I think so. But at this point I will second the motion. I'll call the question. All in favor of the motion say aye. Motion carries three zero. Mr. Fernandez, is there anything further? MR. FERNANDEZ: We have nothing further, Madam Chairman. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: Do I hear a motion for adjournment? COMMISSIONER MAC'KIE: So moved. ACTING CHAIRMAN BERRY: Seconded. Meeting's adjourned. There being no further business for the good of the County, the meeting was adjourned at 9:55 a.m. BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS BARBARA BERRY, ACTING CHAIRMAN ATTEST: DWIGHT E. BROCK, CLERK These minutes approved by the Board on presented as or as corrected TRANSCRIPT PREPARED ON BEHALF OF GREGORY COURT REPORTING SERVICE BY: CHERIE LEONE, RPR