Why aren't Florida Consitutional Officers Required to be Transparent about their Budgets?

Feb. 3, 2015        Tavares, FL  -  Lake County

Why aren't Florida Constitutional officers required to be transparent about their budgets and have public budget hearings like the County, School Districts, cities and Hospital District? 

Florida requires little oversight on elected Constitutional Officers like Tax Collector, Property Appraiser, Sheriff, Elections Superintendent - I have periodically asked that Constitutional Officers be required to have public hearings over their budget details and to post a DETAILED proposed and then approved budget each year. Instead, they have no requirements to do so. As an example, the Lake County Tax Collector has a 2014-2015 budget of $5.5-million, but his website only shows this very vague, one page proposed budget dated Sept., 2014.

Why aren't Constitutional officers required to have public hearings, budget workshops, and post DETAILED budgets on their websites like the County and schools do?

What is going for software vs facilities vs utilities vs wages vs benefits? We don't know and are never allowed to provide public input.

Ask your constitutional officer AND your Florida legislator why they don't do that.

 http://www.laketax.com/forms/2014-2015_budget.pdf

and, the Tax Collector has only ONE page in the 484 page Lake County Budget book HERE (scroll to page 384). 

PS:  If you compare the two pages above, the totals do not agree.  That could be due to the Tax Collector only posting the Sept. 2014 requested budget and not the approved budget.  Or he has more revenues from other sources not disclosed in the County version.  

vj