Courthouse funding hinges on voter approval

Courthouse funding hinges on voter approval

by Deborah Nelson
October 23, 2007

With 40 public-owned acres next to Santa Rosa’s jail now on the auction block, the quest for ways to fund a new courthouse, and the land to site it on, continues in Santa Rosa County.

Tallahassee-directed belt-tightening and a recent Supreme Court ruling have shifted funding approval authority for the proposed project towards Santa Rosa voters.

The Board of Commissioners discussed possible strategies to appeal to voters at Monday’s Committee meeting, but stopped short of appointing a citizens’ committee to recommend potential sites and funding sources.

Earlier this year, Commissioner Tom Stewart pledged to find money for a new courthouse, even if that required delving into the budget to ‘take it out of our hide.’

“Well guess what,” he remarked Monday, “the State of Florida has taken our hide away from us.”

In recent months, state lawmakers passed a bill that limits the amount local governments may increase property taxes each year. Legislators are still negotiating further property tax reforms.

And the Florida Supreme Court recently ruled that special ‘Tax Increment Financing’ bonds must be approved via ballot. TIF earmarks future property tax revenue increases in specific areas to pay for project bond financing in those zones.

“No matter what decision we make, we’re going to have to ask the people to support it through referendum, Stewart noted.

Santa Rosa voters, historically, have been unenthusiastic about tax hikes. Commissioners can increase gas taxes without a public vote.

“We have gas tax available to us that we are not using. We have sales tax that we are not using. But we’ve asked the people on several occasions and they denied us, denied the county the additional sales tax,” Stewart observed.

Meanwhile, say officials, now’s the time to buy land for a courthouse site.

Commissioners, two weeks ago, voted to sell off the 40-acre Industrial Park parcel, located at Opportunity Drive and East Milton Road. Officials had previously floated the parcel as a possible judicial center/courthouse site.

“A pretty large project is considering moving into the county,” Commissioner Don Salter told the Board, regarding the sale. Other industrial park properties, located farther north and off the main highway, are still available, he said.

Future plans to extend Hwy. 87 across Hwy. 90 and through the Industrial Park would run the new roadway between the jail and any potential courthouse facility, Commissioner Gordon Goodin noted.

Goodin suggests siting the facility next to Pensacola Junior College, Milton Campus might foster a new roadway corridor between Hwy. 90, Hamilton Bridge Rd. and Berryhill Rd., and spur area development. Other land offers are also on the table.

But, say officials, suitable properties won’t be available forever, and funding-related delays could let some properties slip through county fingers.

“Buying the land to put a courthouse on is step one,” Stewart remarked. “We don’t get to step two until we get to step one. And that’s where we’re at.”

“Sooner or later, the only site left will be the jail site,” he added.

That’s still a viable location, says Commissioner Bob Cole.

“If I had to vote on this today, probably my opinion would be to build it on the site that we have out by the jail, and to do it on a referendum on a one-cent sales tax,” Cole remarked.

He suggests that bonding the courthouse project and siting it on free county land might strengthen public support.

“Sunset the sales tax, [build] a plain and simple office building, not a Taj Majal, and I think we could pass that,” Cole said.

Although they did not agree to form a citizen’s group, commissioners considered holding public hearings, leading up to a possible January referendum, to gauge the level of public support for sales tax or TIF financing levies.

And the Board will take another look at money that might be available in the County capital improvement budget to buy property.

“If the people turn down, for whatever reason, the building of the courthouse, land investment is not a bad deal nowadays,” Salter noted.