After narrowly beating challenger Larry Hughes on Nov. 4, Ford sent Gov. Charlie Crist a letter of resignation, dated Nov. 6 and effective Nov. 30.
By doing so, the longtime incumbent cashed in on a state program that had allowed him to simultaneously collect a paycheck and $337,000 in retirement payments from the past five years.
Ford had enrolled five years earlier in the state's Deferred Retirement Option Program, or DROP, and had to retire for a full calendar month to collect that lump sum of retirement cash. Now, he can take office anew on Jan. 5, bank the $337,000 and collect the appraiser's salary and thousands of dollars per month in new pension payments as long as voters re-elect him.
Crist, meanwhile, has not appointed a replacement. Calls to the Property Appraiser's Office to find out who is running it were not returned, nor did Ford return a call seeking comment.
Brevard County Clerk of the Court Scott Ellis criticized the move as unethical while acknowledging that it's legal.
"He's abandoned his job for 30 days," Ellis said of Ford's resignation. "It's not like he told anybody when he was running."
An attorney general's opinion of 2001 says that resigning from a current term doesn't prevent an elected official from assuming office for the upcoming term to which he was re-elected.
Ford isn't the only one doing it. The governor's office received 14 other resignation letters from recently re-elected constitutional officers, including Leon County's longtime state attorney, several sheriffs, the Charlotte County clerk of courts and tax collector, and several other property appraisers.
In Lee County, County Property Appraiser Ken Wilkinson took
advantage of the retirement law that allowed him a $588,081 payout
plus a monthly pension and a government paycheck during his next
four years.
Wilkinson began retirement this month, 26 days after being elected to his eighth term. It's only temporary; he will return in January.
Wilkinson, appraiser since 1980, will collect $588,081 in a lump-sum payment likely in January or soon after. He'll get $9,037 per month through his state pension, starting this month. He will pocket his usual paychecks based on a $142,239 salary, starting in January.
In Brevard County, Ford ran for re-election amidst an 18-month-long criminal investigation of his office after former workers alleged wrongdoing. His lieutenant, Lance Larsen, was charged with official misconduct. But a judge dismissed the charges after blocking evidence and ruling that the prosecution hadn't made a case. Ford, a Republican, beat former School Board member Larry Hughes, a Democrat, by a slim margin.
Two days after re-election, he sent Crist the letter announcing his resignation.
Now, Ford will receive monthly retirement checks of nearly $7,000 on top of his $139,000 annual salary and the earlier payment of $337,000 from an interest-bearing fund, said Linda McDonald, deputy communications director for the Florida Department of Management Services.
Ford's ex-wife will get half the monthly retirement benefits and half the DROP payout, McDonald said.
"The difference between elected officers and everyone else is that when elected officers take that calendar month off, when they return to work they will collect their monthly retirement benefits," McDonald said. "When other employees return to work after that calendar month off they will not get that monthly benefit for the rest of that year after they return to work."
The deferred-retirement program was created by the Legislature in 1998 to give senior and highly paid public employees an incentive to retire.
The law wasn't meant to let elected officials double-dip, Ellis said.
"I don't have a problem if you're an
elected official and you retire," Ellis said, "but if
you're coming back you shouldn't be allowed in a retirement
program at all."
Double-dipping
The St. Petersburg Times reported in February that the state is paying $300 million a year to so-called retirees who continued to receive a paycheck. The report said 211 elected officials, 203 senior managers and more than 7,763 state employees are collecting both retirement benefits and full-time salaries.
During the Legislature's last regular session, State Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, tried to close the loophole, but failed. Fasano helped fashion the law as a state representative in 1998, but has seen its purpose distorted. He wants to change the law so that elected officials who come back after retirement must suspend their retirement payments.
"What has happened, is there have been some very notable cases of people who have 'retired' and come back to work and continue to receive retirement benefits and the salaries associated with those high paying positions," said Greg Giordano, Fasano's chief legislative assistant.
This spring, with more budget cuts looming, the Legislature may be more willing to look at Fasano's proposal, he said.
"With this type of thinking that we need to find areas in which to save money, this may be an atmosphere in which his idea might be more acceptable," Giordano said. "We're being hopeful."
