Despite the best efforts of Clerk of Courts Pam Childers and County Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger, the Escambia County Commission voted to join the two nonprofits suing Childers over community impact grant checks that she refused to write.
- Background: In April, Greater Pensacola Junior Golf Association (First Tee Gulf Coast) and Warrington Emergency Aid Center (WEAC) filed a complaint against Childers the $7,000 in county funds, total $7,000, that the Board of County Commissioners had unanimously approved for two Pensacola nonprofits. The nonprofits, represented by attorney Alex Andrade, filed a writ of mandamus to compel Childers to issue payment, seek a declaratory judgment, and establish personal liability under Florida Statute § 129.09. Read 246771410 Complaint.
The Issue Before the Board of County Commissioners
In 1985, the BCC passed Ordinance 46-28, which funds could be given “individuals or community service groups for volunteer services, donations of gifts to the county, or beautification of the county” were “deemed to constitute valid and proper county purposes.”
“Because of this ordinance, Florida law says we have to bring the county in as a party now,” Andrade told the commissioners. “From that perspective, because of this ordinance, the validity of it might be challenged and questioned by this declaratory judgment action. We have to bring the county commission in either as a plaintiff or a defendant.”
Andrade hoped the county commission would consider taking part as a plaintiff with WEAC and First Tee. “If you come in as a plaintiff based on the county’s position of these funds and the expenditure of these funds being legal, especially given this ordinance, it would clarify the issues, resolve a lot of the procedural ticky-tacky stuff that could delay the resolution of the question of what the commission’s role is versus the clerks in the expenditure of funds and the finding of public purpose and save the county time and money.”
For Commissioner Mike Kohler, the issue wasn’t about the checks owed to WEAC and First Tee. “The real question is who has authority for public purpose. And this is why the clerk and I are at an impasse now. I believe the board does. I’ve worked with the clerk on multiple things over the year, and I think she’s been right on a lot of things, but I don’t think she’s right on this. “
Kohler wanted the BCC to join the plaintiffs. “Unfortunately, the board is put in a very precarious position right now. We have to decide: do we believe we control public purpose, or do we have one constitutional officer that distorts public purpose? And I believe that this board decides public purpose.”
At Stake
If the BCC joined the nonprofit, Childers would not have the ability to have the lawsuit dismissed due to the nonprofits having a lack of status. The Clerk needed to get the BCC to become a defendant with her.
Childers: This Is Personal—and Political
Clerk of Courts Pam Childers came to the commission chamber ready to fight—on the law, on her own finances, and on what she characterized as a campaign to ruin her.
- Childers pushed back hard on the suggestion that she had formally sought an Attorney General opinion on the legality of the community impact grant payments. “I did not ask for a formal opinion. That is not true,” she told Commissioner Steve Stroberger. She said she had merely put state officials on notice that a lawsuit was coming and had asked what enforcement tools existed for wasteful government spending.
On the underlying legal question, Childers was equally direct: just because commissioners appropriate money doesn’t mean every expenditure that flows from that appropriation is lawful. “I will sign off that you will always have the legislative authority. Always. I am not going to fight that in court,” she said. But she drew a sharp distinction between the commission’s authority to appropriate and her own office’s obligation to scrutinize individual payments. “Words matter. Details matter. The expenditure that comes through this county for my office to pay matters.”
Childers also leveled a pointed personal charge. She accused Commissioner Kohler and the plaintiffs’ attorney of trying to “ruin me personally” and “ruin me financially” through Count Four of the lawsuit, which she said seeks $1.5 million directly from her. “Two weeks later, there’s a demand letter from Andrade to say, ‘Pay this money, or we’ll sue you for 600,000.’ Then there’s a lawsuit that says, ‘Pay this money, we’ll go after you for a million five.'”
Later in the debate, Childers claimed the lawsuit would not settle the matter and insinuated that other nonprofits would have to sue her to receive payment. She also claimed that none of the commissioners, except for Hofberger, ever sat down with her to discuss the issue. Both Kohler and Commissioner May rebutted that allegation.
Andrade Dismantles Childers’ Narrative—Point by Point
Alex Andrade did not plan to engage with the clerk directly. But when Childers claimed she had not sought outside opinions before refusing the payments, Andrade corrected the record with her own words.
“From that email, it is very clear that the clerk does not know if these payments are unlawful and was asking for assistance from the CFO.”
— Attorney Alex Andrade, quoting Childers’ own correspondence
Andrade produced an email Childers sent to the state CFO’s office—before any demand letter or lawsuit—in which she wrote: “I do not believe property tax dollars should be given in increments of 500 to $1,500 to the commissioner’s not for profit of choice just because it feels good.” He noted she sent a similar inquiry to the Attorney General’s office. Both documents, he said, were attached to his pleadings in the case.
Andrade explained the legal mechanics driving the commission’s involvement. Under Florida Statute 86.091, because the dispute involves a 1985 county ordinance, the county must be made a party. The only question before the commission, he said, was whether to be listed on the plaintiff’s side of the case or the defendant’s side.
Joining as plaintiffs, Andrade argued, would be faster, cheaper, and allow the commission to shape the scope of the declaratory action. Critically, as co-plaintiffs, the commission could condition its participation on a guarantee that the strict liability provisions targeting Childers personally—Florida Statute 129.09, which says a clerk who issues an illegal payment “shall be liable” for that amount—would never be enforced against her.
“I obviously believe and my client’s belief that the issuance of these payments are not illegal and never anticipated to collect money because we think the clerk is incorrect in her legal analysis,” Andrade said. The strict liability threat, in his framing, was the clerk’s own invention—a liability she would only face if the court agreed with her own legal argument that the payments were unlawful.
Hofberger: I Wouldn’t Vote for This Again
Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger made clear she had no intention of voting to join the lawsuit and used the debate to steer the conversation to the BCC discontinuing the community impact grants. When she got little support, Hofberger later in the debate made snide remarks to Andrade and Kohler, which didn’t help her case.
“I have said all along when you know better, do better,” Hofberger said. She acknowledged that she voted for the grants in the past but said she would not do so again. Her objection was not procedural—it was substantive. In her view, using property tax dollars to fund private nonprofits, however worthy, is simply wrong.
“We have people begging for property tax reform and we’re going to turn around and sue to give that money away instead of building sidewalks or putting in cameras or anything else we could be doing,” she said. “That is just absolutely freaking ridiculous.”
Hofberger went further, moving to add the 1985 ordinance authorizing community goodwill payments to a future commission agenda for repeal. “Under no circumstances should we be paying property tax dollars to charity,” she said. “Whatever hearings we need to have to remove that ordinance for future.”
Stroberger: Uneasy, But Ready for an Answer
With Commissioner Steve Barry absent, Commissioner Steve Stroberger became the obvious swing vote, he spent the debate wrestling openly with the discomfort of a government body suing itself—and landed, reluctantly, on the side of moving forward.
Stroberger said he had been consistent about his skepticism of discretionary community support funds, noting that the word “discretionary” is misleading because commissioners vote on the grants collectively rather than spending the money unilaterally. But his focus at this meeting was less on the policy and more on the process.
- He wanted clarity. “I need clarification. I need to know who decides,” he said. “Even if it’s just for this board now and future boards and clerks later, we need an answer to who gets to make that decision.”
When Andrade confirmed that only a judge could provide that answer, Stroberger said he accepted it—reluctantly.
“The most uneasy thing about this is being on the other side of that deed, suing her, the Clerk of Court. We’re suing ourselves. That’s what we’re doing,” he said.
- But he added that the ongoing political conflict had worn on him. “I kind of don’t have much tolerance for too much of the … I just don’t. So if I can get to the answers faster, that’s where I want to go.”
Stroberger also made clear he had no appetite for using the lawsuit to go after Childers financially. He said he would never support any outcome in which the clerk was personally liable for the payments. Andrade offered to accept that condition on the commission’s vote to join as plaintiffs.
- In the end, the commissioners voted 3-1 to join the plaintiffs, with the condition that they would not force Childers to repay the county for any checks written to nonprofits should she win the case. Hofberger was the sole negative vote.
