Tax Collector’s Office calls for dismissal of complaint, contending School Board’s ‘voter approval’ theory of case has not been novel for 96 years
Eleven days after the co-counsel for the Sarasota County Tax Collector’s Office filed a response to a Sarasota County School Board complaint against Tax Collector Mike Moran, in his official capacity, 12th Judicial Circuit Judge Hunter W. Carroll ordered a limited stay of the case following a case management conference, The Sarasota News Leader has learned.
During that May 26 conference, Carroll’s order says, “[T]he School Board indicated that there is an ongoing effort for the Legislature to address the statue on which this disagreement emanates.” In the petition its attorney filed with the court on April 24, the School Board contends that Moran is not required to take commissions for the handling of revenue from a special, 1-mill School Board tax that first won voter approval in 2002. Moran has cited a state law as making the commissions necessary.
With the Legislature in special session, Carroll’s May 26 order adds, “it is unclear whether [that body] will add this issue [to its business], and, if so, whether there will be legislative action.”
Therefore, Carroll ordered the stay of the case “in its entirety through June 12,” the document says. “The stay will automatically terminate on June 13,” it adds.
“Regardless of the outcome of any legislative action,” the order continues, “the Court will allow the School Board to file an amended complaint on or before June 19, 2026.”
Disputing the School Board’s ‘voter approval’ theory
On May 15, Bradley J. Ellis, co-counsel for the Sarasota County Tax Collector’s Office, filed his 66-page motion asking the court to dismiss the School Board’s lawsuit, with prejudice, regarding Tax Collector Moran’s decision to withhold more than $2 million in commissions. “With prejudice” means that the School Board could not file an amended version of the complaint.
The response asserts that the School Board’s “ ‘voter approval’ theory of this case has not been novel for 96 years, since the Florida Supreme Court specifically rejected it in a 1930 case, Coppedge v. State ex rel. Bowden, Tax Collector.”
With his emphasis added, Ellis quotes from that ruling, “The organic provision that school funds shall be ‘for the exclusive use of public free schools’ does not forbid the payment from such funds of reasonable statutory commissions for collecting taxes levied for school purposes. A county tax collector is a county officer, but he does not receive a stated salary,” the ruling continued. “His compensation consists of commissions upon tax collections. The Constitution provides for a county public school system and for taxation for schools distinct from the county government and from taxation for county purposes; but this does not prevent the collection of school taxes by county officers; nor does it prohibit the payment to county officers of reasonable statutory fees for collecting district school taxes. The law does not make the expense of collecting district school taxes a county purpose so that the expense of collecting district school taxes may be paid from county funds …”
Ellis continues quoting from the ruling, with more emphasis, “The law does not make the expense of collecting a special tax school district tax a state purpose. Such expense is a school district purpose, and the law contemplates that the commissions allowed by statute for collecting a school district tax shall be paid from the tax collected for the school district.”
The Coppedge ruling, Ellis points out, “is direct, binding precedence for this [School Board] case.”
Moreover, he writes, Florida Statute 192.091 is a general law, which means it “operates universally throughout the state, or uniformly upon subjects as they may exist throughout the state … or is a law relating to a state function or instrumentality,” quoting from the 2015 Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal decision in Board of County Comrs Broward County Florida v. Parrish, which quoted from the 2007 Florida Supreme Court opinion in Fla. Dep’t. of Business & Prof’l Regulation v. Gulfstream Park Racing Ass’n.
Thus, Ellis contends, the court must dismiss all three counts of the School Board complaint, “to the extent [that the School Board asserts] that the Tax Collector may not ever collect commissions from the School Board on the School District’s voted millage(s) pursuant to [Florida Statute] 192.091(2)(b)(1).”
He adds, “Such claims are erroneous as a matter of law and are purely a waste of taxpayer dollars … and the Court must not allow them to go any further.”
“To date, up to and through March 12, 2026,” the School Board complaint said, “the Tax Collector has diverted $2,055,798.65 in funds intended for the School Board as his own personal commission.” Sarasota attorney Daniel J. DeLeo, of the Shumaker Kendrick & Loop firm, is representing the School Board in the litigation.
During the past two referenda conducted on the special tax, DeLeo pointed out, it won voter approval with margins of more than 80%. he also stressed, that, for about 23 years, “[T]he School Board has not paid any commission to the Tax Collector on the voter-approved millage.”
Further, DeLeo contended that, despite Tax Collector Moran’s “justification of the commission by stating that he must maintain statutory compliance, the governing statute does not require the taking of any commission whatsoever and he does so at his sole discretion.”
Ellis, the Tax Collector’s Office co-counsel, calls that allegation “immaterial,” writing that it was included in the complaint “to misinform and inflame the public.”
Ellis also points out, with further emphasis, that “the operative general directive of [Florida Statute] 192.091(2) is that the Tax Collector is entitled to commissions on ‘all real and tangible personal property taxes …,’ ” adding, “That statement is as broad as it gets. Both of the School District’s nonvoted and voted millages are ad valorem (i.e., real property) taxes. Therefore, the broad, operative directive applies to the voted millages(s).”
Ellis further argues that the School Board should have included the Sarasota County Commission as an “indispensable party” in the case. Citing the 2006 Florida Supreme Court decision in Dep’t of Revenue v. Cummings, Ellis pointed out, once more with emphasis, “ ‘An indispensable party has also been described as “one whose interest will be substantially and directly affected by the outcome of the case …” ’ ”
During a May 19 discussion with his board colleagues during their regular meeting that day, county Commissioner Tom Knight noted, “Certainly, we’re not indemnified from the current civil litigation going on.”
Citing state law as the basis for collecting the commissions
The School Board’s lawsuit formally was filed on April 24 as a Verified Complaint for Injunctive and Declaratory Relief, and Alternatively, for Writ of Mandamus.
As the Legal Information Institute of the Cornell Law School explains, a writ of mandamus is an order from a court directing a government official “to properly fulfill their official duties or correct an abuse of discretion.” Quoting the U.S. Department of Justice, the Institute adds, “ ‘Mandamus is an extraordinary remedy, which should only be used in exceptional circumstances of peculiar emergency or public importance.’ “
The School Board complaint asks that the court “order that (1) Tax Collector is obligated to comply with the provision of Florida Statutes section 192.091(4) [in regard to] disbursement and auditing procedures; (2) the Tax Collector must cease his retention of such monies and revert all unlawfully retained monies; and (3) such other relief the Court deems just and proper.”
Florida Statute 192.091 governs the commissions paid to property appraisers and tax collectors. The following is the relevant portion of that law, in the context of the School Board complaint:
However, Ellis, the Tax Collector’s Office co-counsel, contends in his Motion to Dismiss the School Board litigation that “[t]he Tax Collector’s commissions on School District taxes and the School Board’s obligation to pay the commission on the School District’s voted millage(s), are provided in Florida Statute 192.091(2)(b)(1) & (4):
“Commissions of property appraisers and tax collectors.—
(1)(a) The budget of the property appraiser’s office, as approved by the Department of Revenue, shall be the basis upon which the several tax authorities of each county, except municipalities and the district school board, shall be billed by the property appraiser for services rendered. Each such taxing authority shall be billed an amount that bears the same proportion to the total amount of the budget as its share of ad valorem taxes bore to the total levied for the preceding year. All municipal and school district taxes shall be considered as taxes levied by the county for purposes of this computation.”
“(2) The tax collectors of the several counties of the state shall be entitled to receive, upon the amount of all real and tangible personal property taxes and special assessments collected and remitted, the following commissions:
“(b) On collections on behalf of each taxing district and special assessment district:
“1.a.Three percent on the amount of taxes collected and remitted on an assessed valuation of $50 million; and b. Two percent on the balance; and
“2. Actual costs of collection, not to exceed 2 percent, on the amount of special assessments collected and remitted.”
The motion continues to quote from the law, with more emphasis, “The commissions for collecting all special school district taxes shall be audited by the school board of each respective district and taken out of the funds of the respective special school district under its control and allowed and paid to the tax collectors for collecting such taxes; and the commissions for collecting all other district taxes, whether special or not, shall be audited and paid by the governing board or commission having charge of the financial obligations of such district. All commissions for collecting special tax district taxes shall be paid at the time and in the manner now, or as may hereafter be, provided for the payment of the commissions for the collection of county taxes. All amounts paid as compensation to any tax collector under the provisions of this or any other law shall be a part of the general income or compensation of such officer for the year in which received …”
Moreover, Ellis points out, “Even the Florida Department of Education’s own Administrative Rules (which the School Board is obligated to follow) acknowledge the School Board is obligated to pay the Tax Collector’s commission on the School District’s voted millage(s).” He cited Rule 6A1.001, of the Florida Administrative Code, which says, “The superintendent of schools of each school district shall be responsible for keeping adequate records and accounts of all financial transactions in the manner prescribed by the Commissioner in the [2023] publication titled ‘Financial and Program Cost Accounting and Reporting for Florida Schools …”
Ellis adds, “Since at least 1897 and through the present day, Florida Statuteshave contained an unbroken line of statutes unequivocally obligating school districts to pay a tax collector commissions to pay the school district’s fair share of funding the tax collector’s office.”
He provides what he noted was “a selection [of] such unbroken line of statutes which highlights the pertinent evolution and/or which were effective at the time of the 2022 & 2026 [Sarasota School Board] referendums at issue in [the School Board’s] claims.”
Along with the 1897 version, he includes the 1901, 1937, 1943, 1969, 1970, 1981, and the statutes from 1985 through 2025, which — he pointed out — were identical.