Florida counties
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Florida has 67 counties. In 1968, Florida voters adopted a constitutional amendment that grants local voters the power to adopt charters to govern their counties. Charters are formal written documents that confer powers, duties, or privileges on the county. They resemble state or federal constitutions and they must be approved by the county's voters.
As of January 2009, 20 counties in Florida have adopted charter status. Taken together, these counties include more than 75 percent of Florida's residents.
[edit] County website evaluations
- Main article: Evaluation of Florida county websites
- 47 of the 67 counties posted their budgets online.
- 60 counties include information on their websites about public government meetings.
- 57 include information about the county's elected officials.
- 46 include information about the county's administrative officials.
- 52 counties give information about permits and zoning in the county.
- 31 of the counties put information on their websites about audits that the county government has had performed.
- 22 of the 67 counties give information about their contracts with county vendors.
- 3 Counties (Duval, Palm Beach, Pinellas) disclose whether or not they belong to a taxpayer-funded lobbying associations.
- 8 counties (Calhoun, Dixie, Duval, Escambia, Highlands, Orange, Pinellas, Polk, Putnam) provide information on how to request public records using the Florida Sunshine Law.
- 54 county websites provide some information about county taxes.
Ballotpedia evaluated Ballot measure information on Florida county websites.
[edit] Attorney General calls for improvement
Attorney General Bill McCollum issued a call on December 30, 2008 for all "sheriffs, county commissions and school boards" to "...immediately place on their websites the email address and phone number for their public records points of contact. Additionally, the Attorney General asked the government leaders to have their contracts and current budgets posted online in time for Sunshine Week, which starts on March 15."[1]
[edit] Counties without websites
As of early January 2009, one of Florida's 67 counties had no website.
[edit] County governance
How Florida counties are governed depends to a significant extent on whether the county is a charter county or not. The basic differences between a charter county and a non-charter county are:
- For a non-charter, the structure of county government is defined in the Florida Constitution and state statutes. The only way the governance structure of a non-charter county can be changed is by amending the state constitution or state laws. Charter counties, on the other hand, have a governance structure defined in their charter that can be amended by the county's voters as they determine the need for change.[2]
- Any powers of self-governance in non-charter counties are those prescribed by the state constitution. In charter counties, self-goverance is the norm, as long as any self-government decisions are consistent with Florida's constitution and laws.
- Non-charter counties do not have the powers of initiative or referendum or recall. Charter counties do have these powers, if it is written into their specific charter. 15 counties do allow citizens to initiate amendments through the process of collecting signatures on petitions; five do not. The five that do not are Duval, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Sarasota and Volusia.[3]
- Non-charter counties do not require an administrative code. The charter of a charter county can require such a code.[4]
- Non-charter counties can't levy taxes in the county's unincorporated areas. Charter counties can levy "municipal utility taxes" in unincorporated areas.
[edit] List of counties
[edit] See also
- Ballot measure information on Florida county websites
- Florida Association of Counties
- Florida counties lobbying, 2009
- Florida taxpayer-funded lobbying
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ↑ McCollum Calls on Local Governments, Law Enforcement and School Districts to Make Enhanced Sunshine New Year’s Resolution, December 30, 2008
- ↑ Basic differences between charter and non-charter counties
- ↑ Comparison of the charter counties as it relates to recall, initiative and referendum
- ↑ Administrative structure of Florida's charter counties
This article was taken and modified from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under the GNU license.
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