Opinion ID: 1788578
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: The Florida Legislature's Funding Approach (50% of State Attorney's Budget)

Text: Based on unrefuted evidence from the Honorable Elvin L. Martinez, member of the Florida House of Representatives and past chair of the House Criminal Justice Appropriation Committee, the court finds that the Florida Legislature devised its own approach to the funding of the Public Defender offices. Each year the twenty State Attorneys from each circuit submit their budget request to the Office of the Governor and these are eventually placed before the Legislature along with the separate funding requests under the formula by the Public Defenders. The Legislature initially considers the total amount requested by the State Attorneys. After deciding on the amount to be appropriated to the State Attorneys, the Legislature then appropriates approximately fifty percent of that amount for the operation of the Public Defenders. In retrospect one can compute a percentage of the funding formula but the appropriations process is in fact driven entirely by the budgetary requests and appropriations for State Attorneys. The Florida Funding Formula becomes a purely hypothetical or artificial exercise in terms of generating funding. The commissioner accepts the testimony of Representative Martinez as true. It was undisputed.