South Florida Water Management District: Protecting Our Water Resources

The South Florida Water Management District uses a loophole in state law to avoid requiring lobbyists to register and disclose who hired them, which officials they seek to influence and how much they are being paid.

None of the state’s five water management districts requires special-interest lobbyists to register before they contact board members and staff about big money contracts, environmental permits or other important matters involving public policy.

Lobbyist disclosure has been a fact of life for years in Washington, Tallahassee, and at city and county halls across Florida. But not at the South Florida water district’s regional headquarters on Gun Club Road in West Palm Beach, where tens of millions of taxpayer dollars and other public funds are spent every year.

Florida law regulates those who lobby the Legislature, the governor and any agency of the executive branch. Local laws do the same for municipalities. But water district officials contend that broad regulatory reach does not extend to the water districts because they are a unique governmental creature – an independent taxing district.

“In order for us to have a lobbyist registration provision, you’d need to amend the [lobbying] statute to include us,” said longtime SFWMD district general counsel Sheryl Wood. “We are not an executive branch agency.”

State regulations, first adopted decades ago, state that it is necessary to require public disclosure by lobbyists to preserve “the integrity of the governmental decision-making process.” But in its nearly 40 years in existence, the Water District has not asked Tallahassee for the regulatory authority that Wood says it lacks.

Board member Eric Buermann, a Republican who until last week served as chairman of the 1,900-employee district, said it’s time for change. He called lobbyist registration “a good idea” to promote transparency and “allow everybody to know what the relationships are up front.”

“Most of those who come to our meetings, or are advocating to us, are paid to represent a point of view,” Buermann said. “I would be in favor of registration, but I’m also in favor of trying to keep it as simple as possible so you don’t create a whole new bureaucracy to manage all these registrations.”

Public’s right to know

Barbara Petersen, an open-government advocate and president of the Tallahassee-based First Amendment Foundation, said the public has a right to know who is trying to influence district officials.

“I’m surprised to hear this. These agencies deal with some of the biggest issues in the state. People are very concerned with what’s going on with their water,” said Petersen. She added that while the law may not specifically authorize the district to adopt new lobbying controls, it does not appear to prohibit it. either. “I don’t see why they couldn’t just do it,” she said.

Florida’s special-purpose water management districts were created by the Legislature in 1972 to prevent flooding and protect the water supply. They are jointly overseen by the governor, who can veto their budgets, and the Legislature, which decides how much they can collect in taxes from the district’s property owners. The South Florida district covers 16 counties, including Broward and Miami-Dade.

The districts are run by unpaid governing boards that set policy and let contracts. Board members are appointed by the governor to four-year terms, not elected.

The South Florida district has come under fire recently. The executive director announced last week that she would step down on April 29 after news reports of mismanagement and conflict questions about a hiring. Conflict issues regarding board members also have been raised.