Alachua County Commission hears budget requests from Judicial and Constitutional Offices

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At a May 19 Special Budget Meeting, the Alachua County Commission heard budget requests from the County’s Judicial and Constitutional Offices.

Except for the Sheriff’s Office, all of the requests included 3% cost-of-living and up to 2% merit increases for employees, along with corresponding increases in benefits and insurance costs; although these are budget increases, they are not considered to be new requests for funding. The Sheriff’s Office has a bargaining agreement with most employees, so raises and benefits are determined by those agreements.

8th Judicial Circuit

Court Administrator Michael Reeves represented the 8th Judicial Circuit and Chief Judge William E. Davis. He asked to convert two part-time probate case manager positions into a single full-time position, along with benefits for that position, and he asked for another position, currently funded 50% from the General Fund and 50% from the Innovative Court Program Fund, to be funded entirely from the General Fund. 

Guardian Ad Litem

The Guardian Ad Litem office said their Ricoh printer contract will increase 10% next year, but nothing else will change. 

Public Defender

Public Defender Stacy Scott said her office is not asking for any new funding.

State Attorney

State Attorney Brian Kramer began by providing an update on several projects that are underway, including hardening the lobby with bulletproof walls and bulletproof glass for the reception area, along with bullet-resistant doors leading to other areas of the building. He said that project is almost complete. 

The State Attorney’s Office also expects to benefit from an upcoming Request For Proposals for security cameras that will be used throughout County facilities. His office also wants to construct a gate to control entry access for the parking lot that surrounds their building; he said the parking lot on the south side of University Avenue will remain open to the public outside of business hours. Kramer added that having electronic control of the access gates will allow the County to decide whether the lot could remain open during the evening hours for restaurant and theater patrons. 

Kramer also said he was not asking for any new funding.

Clerk of the Court

Clerk of the Court Jess Irby requested $7,000 for new software that would create “a much better portal for the citizens to use when they want to submit a petition to challenge our Property Appraiser’s findings.” Other than that, he did not ask for any new funding.

Prizzia asks for forms to use language at an “eighth-grade reading level, if not a fifth-grade reading level”

Commissioner Anna Prizzia said she wanted the Constitutional Officers to hear that many organizations have given her feedback that “many of our government forms and data [are] really difficult for people who have a very basic education to read. We use fancy language, we use a lot of acronyms, we use a lot of big words, and so if there could be an effort across our Constitutionals and the government to take a look at the forms that are public-facing and think about the ways in which we might be able to bring those down to at least an eighth-grade reading level, if not a fifth-grade reading level,… I know that’s been a request from a number of social services organizations.”

Chair Ken Cornell agreed, “Oftentimes, literacy is not just a child issue; it’s a whole-family issue.”

Prizzia said her comment wasn’t specifically for the Clerk, but that office has a lot of forms.

Irby said that nearly all of their forms are “Florida Supreme Court-approved forms… We’re not creating those.” He said, however, that his office runs a self-help center on the fourth floor, “so if a person is having a hard time grasping [what a form] is asking for, hopefully they can provide a little assistance with comprehension.”

Property Appraiser

Property Appraiser Ayesha Solomon also said her budget is a continuation budget. She remarked that the sign outside her office is illegible on one side and said she would appreciate someone looking into replacing it or fixing it. Cornell referred that to the Facilities Management Director.

Supervisor of Elections

Supervisor of Elections Kim Barton said, “For the very first time, I have no requests.” She said, however, that she might need to ask for additional funds if a recount is needed. 

She said she appreciated Prizzia’s comment about simplifying forms: “When I meet with my team,… they’ll see a paper — I’ve redlined everything. ‘Find another word… That needs to be simpler’ — because we serve people of all spectrums, with different levels of education, so we have to make sure that whatever we put out there, it’s plain and simple, that it’s at a certain level that anyone can understand… That’s one of my big things.” 

Tax Collector

Tax Collector John Power also had a continuation budget. He said his goal is always to generate more revenue than they use through operational efficiencies, “and next year, we’re looking at returning another million dollars back to the taxing authorities, so we’re proud of that.”

Prizzia thanked Power for a driver’s license initiative he spearheaded in collaboration with the County, and she asked whether equipment could be made available at the jail to provide licenses and identification cards. Power said he and the Sheriff’s Office are “looking into the possibility of a mobile unit, where we can go to the citizens who can’t come to us — maybe they’re incarcerated, maybe they’re in a nursing home, or other medical conditions that they can’t come in and physically get their ID.”

Prizzia said that could “connect with our Mobile Outreach Clinic, which goes into a lot of our rural areas.”

Sheriff

Sheriff Chad Scott said he wanted to stay on track with the salary increase plan that was developed in February 2025; it includes a 4.35% increase for non-ranking Deputy Sheriffs, which would increase the starting pay from $57,500 to $60,000 in the coming fiscal year and $62,000 in FY28. He said this will allow Alachua County Sheriff’s Office (ASO) to stay competitive and noted that Gainesville Police Department is at $60,000 already. 

Scott also asked for two new positions; one is in Information Technology to keep up with the increase in FDLE information system requirements, and the other is a Building Access CJIS Specialist to coordinate unescorted building access for external vendors and volunteers, including at the jail.

Scott said the inmate medical, mental health, and food service contracts have negotiated increases between 3% and 8%. He also noted that the jail staff has been enrolling inmates in Universal Comprehensive Healthcare Services, and that has saved the County $1,051,879.59 this year alone. Prizzia noted that the enrollment continues to cover inmates after they are released from the jail. 

Prizzia asked for the County to be at the table when the contracts are renegotiated, noting that the last time, they were able to get three hot meals a day for jail inmates. She said there have also been a lot of conversations around mental health services and supports at the jail, and “our Food Systems Economic Development team has been working really hard on infrastructure to support our local farmers being able to provide food” to institutions like the jail. Scott said he would “absolutely” be in favor of including the County in the negotiations.

Commissioner Mary Alford said she was interested in the concession services contract at the jail, saying she was “getting a lot of reports of really predatory fees and costs again.”

Undersheriff Joshua Crews said the Sheriff’s Office has already addressed commissary pricing, “and basically, the ones that are purchased the most, all of them were dropped substantially.”

Alford said she had also heard that a family tried to deposit $20 or $30 into a commissary account and was charged a fee of $7, and Scott said he would look into that.

Scott said the vehicle replacements scheduled for this year are slightly more than last year, and ASO anticipates increased costs for hardware and software agreements, including a new contract for body-worn cameras.

Scott said the Real Time Crime Center, currently in the planning stages, will take over a space that the County is vacating; the budget does not currently include a request for additional positions for that facility, but that may change.

School zone speed cameras will move from the warning phase to the active phase on Tuesday, May 26.

Scott said he is not requesting any money for capital improvement projects, but he reminded Commissioners that ASO has upcoming and ongoing facility needs, including covered and secured parking for oversized specialty fleet vehicles, reconfiguring the Administration Building, expanding the Evidence Unit, and additional operating space for Animal Services Enforcement.

Prizzia asked whether the school zone speed camera data could be sold by the vendor, and Crews said the data will be kept in-house and not retained over 30 days unless it’s part of a criminal investigation.