Summary
To: Town Commission
From: Jay Daigneault, Town Attorney
Date: 12/29/2022
______________________________________________________________________
Subject:
Title
Ratification of authorization of Stuart Kaufman, Esq. to file request for informal hearing
with Department of Management Services.
Summary:
On December 12, 2022, the Town received via certified mail a letter from Florida's
Department of Management Services, Division of Retirement (the "Division") directed to Mayor
Wilkinson. The letter informed that the Division was required to and did intend to withhold
$59,878.07 in premium tax moneys for the Town's Police Officer's Pension Plan as the result of
the Plan's noncompliance with Chapter 185, Fla. Stat. The Plan was noncompliant because a copy of the Town's audited financial statement had not been timely provided to the Division. The letter from the Division provided that the Town had twenty-one days from the date of the letter to challenge the Division's withholding of the premium tax moneys. Longtime counsel to the Town's Plan's Board of Trustees, Stuart Kaufman, Esq. of Klausner Kaufman Jensen & Levinson in Plantation, FL, recommended that a request for informal hearing be filed with the Division so that the circumstances of the Town's late audit could be explained, and the premium tax moneys preserved pending the State's review and acceptance of the late-filed audit. He requested permission from the Town to file the request for informal hearing on behalf of both the Board and the Town because the moneys are, in fact, sent to the Town for appropriate distribution and allocation. Thus, his opinion was and is that the Town is a necessary party to the request for informal hearing. But, as the retained counsel only for the Board of Trustees, he required authority to represent the Town, and sought that authority from the Town Manager. Because only the Commission has the ability to retain counsel on the Town's behalf, and because the request for inform...
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