Opinion ID: 1788426
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Delineating Municipal or Public Purposes Under Article VII, Section 3(a)

Text: In the absence of any indication in the Constitution to the contrary, we conclude that the term municipal or public purposes should be construed in accordance with the definition utilized by the Court in its prior decisions on the constitutional tax exemption. There is nothing in the language of article VII, section 3(a) that evinces an intent to create a more restrictive definition of municipal or public purposes for property that is owned and used exclusively by the municipality than the definition applied to municipal purposes under the 1885 Constitution in McDavid and Saunders through the 1968 adoption of the current provision. Although McDavid and Saunders rested at least in part on judicial deference to the Legislature's assessment of what type of activity served municipal purposes, we have no basis to conclude that a narrower construction was intended when the self-executing exemption was included in the 1968 Constitution. To the contrary, had the framers of article VII, section 3(a) intended to narrow the exemption, they could have specifically defined municipal or public purposes, or used different terms altogether. This determination is consistent with the principle that the Legislature is presumed to have adopted prior judicial constructions of a law unless a contrary intention is expressed, Florida Dep't of Children & Families v. F.L., 880 So.2d 602, 609 (Fla.2004), which is equally applicable on the constitutional level. See generally Coastal Fla. Police Benev. Ass'n v. Williams, 838 So.2d 543, 548 (Fla.2003) (stating that rules governing statutory construction are generally applicable to construction of constitutional provisions). As stated by one observer shortly after the adoption of the 1968 Constitution, cases construing the constitutional municipal purposes exemption and the statutory public purposes exemption continue to be good law even after the adoption of the new constitution. Robert F. Williams, Note, Property Tax Exemptions Under Article VII, Section 3(a) of the Florida Constitution of 1968, 21 U. Fla. L.Rev. 641, 643 (1969). We therefore conclude that the municipal or public purposes for which municipally owned property must be exclusively used in article VII, section 3(a) to qualify for an ad valorem tax exemption encompass activities that are essential to the health, morals, safety, and general welfare of the people within the municipality. We agree with the dissent on the parameters of this test, but disagree on its application in determining the facial constitutionality of the challenged legislation.