Opinion ID: 1149454
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Is a member of the school board an officer within the contemplation of article III, section 11(a)(1)?

Text: While the district court of appeal was silent on the subject, the trial court held that school board members were not constitutional officers. We note, however, that article III, section 11(a)(1), is not limited to constitutional officers. In any event, school board members are now accorded constitutional status by article IX, section 4(a), Florida Constitution. Furthermore, in holding that deputy sheriffs were a class of officers within the ambit of a previous constitutional prohibition against the passage of special local laws regulating officers, this Court approved a definition of the term office which would surely encompass a member of the school board: `The term office implies a delegation of a portion of the sovereign power to, and possession of it by, the person filling the office; a public office being an agency for the state, and the person whose duty it is to perform the agency being a public officer. The term embraces the idea of tenure, duration, emolument, and duties, and has respect to a permanent public trust to be exercised in behalf of government, and not a merely transient, occasional, or incidental employment.' Blackburn v. Brorein, 70 So.2d 293, 297 (Fla. 1954) (quoting State ex rel. Clyatt v. Hocker, 39 Fla. 477, 485-86, 22 So. 721, 723 (1897)). This Court has also held that a member of the school board was an officer subject to suspension by the governor under a prior constitutional provision authorizing the governor to suspend all officers who are not liable to impeachment. In re Advisory Opinion to the Governor, 97 Fla. 705, 122 So. 7 (1929). In addition, there are several other decisions of this Court which have assumed that school board members are officers within the meaning of the constitutional prohibition against special laws pertaining to the duties of officers. School Board v. State, 353 So.2d 834 (Fla. 1977); Coon v. Board of Public Instruction, 203 So.2d 497 (Fla. 1967); Shad v. DeWitt, 158 Fla. 27, 27 So.2d 517 (1946). The contention that the word officer in article III, section 11(a)(1), means only a person having individual jurisdiction rather than members of boards with collegial and corporate authority is belied by the case of Board of County Commissioners v. Hibbard, 292 So.2d 1 (Fla. 1974). In Hibbard this Court addressed a special law which transferred certain duties of the county commissioners to the sheriff. The law was held invalid as violating the constitutional prohibition against special laws pertaining to the duties of officers because it curtails the duties of certain constitutional officers and shifts such duties to another constitutional officer. Id. at 7. The fact that the county commissioners act in a collegial and corporate capacity did not prevent them from being recognized as officers. Thus, there can be no doubt that a school board member is an officer for purposes of section 11(a)(1) of the Florida Constitution.