Florida Legislation - Box Tax Date

The adoption of the new DOC Budget focused attention on the manner in which the industry is changing and it is suggestive of the need to make some modifications in Chapter 601. Some of these changes are purely operational, but some of them require statutory authority. I won't have everything included here, but I'll have some things that have been bothering me for a long time. 

The grower organizations in this state ought to wake up enough to start thinking about this and making recommendations. We have plenty of time to get ready for next fall and make some changes.

Budget Process

Our current budget process requires that the Commission estimate the crop size in June, set tax rates before August 1, and have a final budget in place by June or July. It forces newly appointed Commissioners to vote on a budget in June at their very first meeting.

Shouldn't we change Chapter 601 so that we could operate with a preliminary operating budget during the first few months of the year and then set both final budget numbers and tax rates after the October 10th crop estimate. That way we know how much fruit we really have and we can better make meaningful decisions. It seems to me this would offer a considerably improved procedure for handling the Commission's budget responsibilities. 

Commission Membership, Qualifications, and Appointment 

As I looked around the Commission room at the last meeting, I had to wonder how many of these individual Commissioners really had any sand in their shoes, or knew anything about, or even owned, citrus groves and how you handle them to produce fruit. (Current Bio’s {Feb 6, 07} for SOME Commissioners can be found at http://www.floridajuice.com/about_fcc_bios.php)

Today processing plants are largely owned by non-grower capital, and with something close to 50% of the industry being owned by Brazilian capital, there is a legitimate ques-tion about whether, or not, the processing segment of the industry is entitled to three seats on the Citrus Commission. If they are, then we ought to have three Commissioners who actually own grove and derive a substantial portion of their income from the growing of citrus. I don't think we have that today. The three sitting processor representatives are Andy Taylor, Bill Ferrari, and Tris Chapman.

We probably need to look at all Commissioners and make a more meaningful statement about what is required as to grove ownership and income. Shouldn't we probably have some kind of a requirement that says either 50% of gross income, or 50% of net worth be from the growing of citrus in Florida and maybe we should make that apply to a proces-sor who wants to qualify one of its officers to sit as a grower member of the Commission. We need to talk about this. 

There has been discussion about the election of Commissioners, but I'm inclined to think that's a bad idea. However, we could have a system in which the Governor has to appoint Commissioners from amongst those who have been nominated by grower groups within the industry. That could be a Packing House Association, it could be Florida Citrus Mu-tual, it could be any one of a number of organizations, but they would have to write the Governor and recommend certain individuals and explain why. That's the way that the Box Tax Committee is currently being appointed. It has worked well there. It would work well at the Florida Citrus Commission.