SARASOTA, FL—Shumaker attorneys successfully led a groundbreaking legal challenge on behalf of the Sarasota County School Board and taxpayers that has resulted in sweeping statewide legislative reform protecting tens of millions of dollars in voter-approved education funding for Florida’s public schools.

The passage of HB 7031E by the Florida Legislature, which contained a revision to Florida Statute Sect. 192.091 governing how tax collectors take commissions follows litigation spearheaded by Shumaker Partner Daniel DeLeo, Associate Raven Peters, and his legal team, after the Sarasota County Tax Collector unilaterally began withholding commissions from a voter-approved school millage referendum, diverting funds intended for classrooms, teachers, school safety, and educational programs.

What began as a local dispute with the Sarasota County Tax Collector to recover millions of dollars wrongfully taken from Sarasota schools has now produced a statewide solution to a growing statewide problem, impacting 28 other Florida school districts and potentially all 67 Florida school districts.

For more than 23 years, Sarasota County had covered the cost of collecting the voter-approved school millage. That longstanding practice changed when the Sarasota Tax Collector, Mike Moran, adopted a new and self-serving interpretation of Florida law and began withholding millions of dollars of the referendum proceeds as a commission.

In response, the Sarasota County School Board and two taxpayers filed suit seeking to halt what it viewed as an unlawful diversion of public education funds.The litigation achieved several significant outcomes, including the recovery of more than $2 million that had been improperly withheld from Sarasota County Schools and the restoration of those funds for educational purposes; the reversal of the Sarasota County Commission’s decision to stop covering the commission costs associated with the voter-approved school millage; legislative clarification through HB 7031E establishing that commissions on school millages are the responsibility of county commissions rather than school districts; and confirmation that tax collectors may waive such commissions entirely, ensuring voter-approved school funding can be directed fully toward education. The legislation’s impact extends far beyond Sarasota County, as HB 7031E is expected to preserve tens of millions of dollars annually for Florida’s public schools by preventing those funds from being diverted to tax collectors’ budgets.

In Sarasota County alone, the financial impact is estimated at approximately $10 million over the next five years.