Judges: Robert L. Shevin, Attorney General Prepared by: Jerald S. Price, Assistant Attorney General
Filed Date: 5/16/1978
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 7/5/2016
Charles J. Scriven Chairman Parole and Probation Commission Tallahassee
QUESTION:
Are the commissioners of the Florida Parole and Probation Commission entitled to payment of accrued annual and sick leave upon retirement?
SUMMARY:
Members of the Parole and Probation Commission are state officers, not merely state employees. As such, they are not entitled by law to accrue annual or sick leave or to be paid for unused annual or sick leave upon termination of duty or service with the state or upon retirement, absent express authorization by statute.
You have stated that this opinion request was suggested by the Auditor General, by whom you have been initially advised that no statutory has been found allowing members of the Parole and Probation Commission (as opposed to commission employees) to accrue annual or sick leave or to receive payments based upon claims of accrued annual or sick leave upon retirement as members of the commission.
The question you now ask was addressed and answered in the negative in an informal opinion of this office dated April 8, 1976. In that informal opinion, one of my assistants concluded that members of the commission are public officers and that, as such, they are not entitled — absent statutory authority — to accrue annual and sick leave or to receive terminal payments therefor. It was noted in the informal opinion that public officers have no claim to compensation except as clearly provided by law (which law must be strictly construed), Gavagan v. Marshall,
. . . the idea of tenure, duration, emolument, and duties, and has respect to a permanent public trust to be exercised in behalf of government, and not to a merely transient, occasional, or incidental employment. A person, in the service of the government, who derives his position from a duly and legally authorized election or appointment, whose duties are continuous in their nature, and defined by rules prescribed by government, and not by contract, consisting of the exercise of important public powers, trusts, or duties, as a part of the regular administration of the government, the place and the duties remaining, though the incumbent dies or is changed . . . .
I find the above-quoted standards from Hocker to be clearly met in the case of members of the Parole and Probation Commission. For example, the members of the commission are appointed by the Governor and Cabinet, subject to confirmation by the Senate, s.
It is provided in s. 5(c), Art. II, State Const., that `[t]he powers, duties, compensation and method of payment of state and county officers shall be fixed by law.' (Emphasis supplied.) And, Florida courts have stated that:
Public officers have no legal claim for official services rendered, except when, and to the extent that, compensation is provided by law, and when no compensation is so provided, the rendition of such services is deemed to be gratuitous. [Rawls v. State,
122 So. 222 (Fla. 1929).]
In accord: State v. Reardon,
The amount of compensation to be paid to each member of the commission was, at one time, specifically set by the Legislature (see s. 26, Ch.
In the absence of legislative direction, the salaries of the commissioners have been set by the Department of Administration, pursuant to s. 110.051(2)(c), F. S. Subsection (2) of s. 110.051 delineates those positions (including both officers and employees) which are not covered by any of the provisions of Ch. 110, F. S. Paragraph (c) of s. 110.051(2) exempts from the provisions and operation of Ch. 110, F. S., `[m]embers of boards and commissions and the head of each state agency, board or commission, however selected . . . .' However, s. 110.051(2)(c) goes on to provide that, notwithstanding the fact that such positions are not subject to the provisions of Ch. 110, `the department [of Administration] shall set the salary of these positions unless otherwise fixed by law.' This latter provision, then, is the only part of Ch. 110, F. S., which is applicable to the members of the Parole and Probation Commission. Therefore, it must follow that the various personnel rules — including those pertaining to annual and sick leave — promulgated by the Division of Personnel of the Department of Administration (appearing in Ch. 22A, Florida Administrative Code) are not applicable to the members of the commission. (The statutory authority for these rules is s. 110.022, F. S. As s. 110.022 is expressly made inapplicable to members of the commission by s. 110.051(2), supra, it follows that the rules promulgated under the authority of and in implementation of s. 110.022 likewise are inapplicable to the members of the commission.) Moreover, s. 110.022(1)(e), F. S., empowers the Department of Administration to establish and maintain uniform leave policies only for `all employees in the career service.' The members of the Parole and Probation Commission are officers, as stated above, and not employees in the career service system established by Ch. 110, F. S.
Having established that the various personnel rules and regulations of the Department of Administration are inapplicable to the members of the Parole and Probation Commission, I must look to the Florida Statutes for guidance as to the method of fixing compensation of members of the commission. In this regard, it is significant to note that s. 110.051(2)(c), supra, empowers the Department of Administration only to set the `salary' of the members of the commission when not otherwise fixed by law. It appears that what is contemplated is the setting of a specific amount of salary, as would otherwise be done by separate statute or in a line item of a general appropriations act. Cf. s. 19 of Ch.
It is the apparent position of the Department of Administration that it may set the `salary' of commission members by comparing them to certain state employees (such as division directors) and by using a formula in computing the commissioners' salaries which contemplates and incorporates the accrual of annual and sick leave along with the periodic salary payments, in order to arrive at the total `salary' payable to the officers in question. I must reiterate that I find nothing in s. 110.051(2)(c) authorizing the Department of Administration to do more than set a specific dollar amount of salary, as would otherwise be provided in an appropriations act or other acts of the Legislature (such as those cited above). Also, I would again emphasize the above-quoted constitutional provision, s. 5(c), Art. II, which mandates that the `compensation and method of payment' of state officers `shall be fixed by law.' [See Dade County v. State,
I have been advised that, when a similar question arose in 1976 involving the retirement of a former member of the commission (which prompted the April 8, 1976, informal opinion referred to above), that former commissioner was denied terminal payment for sick and annual leave credits the commissioner claimed to have accrued. In conversations with various commission personnel, I have been advised of no facts distinguishing the instant case from that of the commissioner who retired in 1976 and who was denied the payment now being sought by another commissioner. In addition, I have been advised by commission personnel that the commissioner now in question was originally an employee of the commission and that, upon his appointment as a member of the commission, he was paid for all annual and sick leave which he had accrued as anemployee of the commission. This fact leads to the inference that neither the commissioner in question nor the commission itself contemplated further accrual of leave credits for which terminal payment could be received once the commissioner in question had changed his status from employee to officer. It is also my understanding that various members of the commission have expressed the view that, as officers, they would expect to continue receiving their salaries during any period of extended illness, even if the sick leave credits they have purported to accrue were used up. All of these facts support the view expressed in the April 8, 1976, informal opinion, that the commissioners — as officers and not employees — are entitled to their official salaries regardless of actual time spent performing their official duties and are, accordingly, not entitled to accrue annual or sick leave or to be paid upon retirement for unused annual or sick leave.
Therefore, I am of the opinion that the result reached in the April 8, 1976, informal opinion of this office was correct and should continue to be followed. Until the Legislature provides clear and express authorization, or until this question is decided otherwise by the courts, the commissioner in question is not lawfully entitled to and should be denied terminal payment based on claimed accrual of annual or sick leave credits. I would urge the Legislature to reexamine the method by which the fixing of the compensation or salaries of the members of the Parole and Probation Commission, as well as other state officers, is delegated to the Department of Administration. The Legislature should either specifically set the salaries of the commissioners, and other state officers, in the annual appropriations act (which would be the most advisable course, in light of the requirement in s. 5(c), Art. II, supra, that state officers' compensation and method of payment be fixed by law) or expressly authorized the commissioners and other state officers, notwithstanding their status as officers, to accrue annual and sick leave and to be paid for unused annual and sick leave at the time of termination of service with the state (and accordingly require that accurate attendance records be kept so as to enable verification of leave time claimed and to facilitate auditing duties of the Auditor General and internal auditors or other fiscal personnel of the affected agencies).
Your question is answered in the negative.
Prepared by: Jerald S. Price, Assistant Attorney General