Removing legal notices from newspapers could save Seminole County taxpayers millions
For decades, cities, counties and schools were required to publish all public notices in the local newspaper, but a recent change by the state legislature could keep millions of taxpayer dollars from being spent.
As of the first of the year, public notices can be placed on a county’s website for free instead.
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Seminole County Commissioner Jay Zembower said the county spent at least a million dollars last year on public notices.
“I mean, that’s a difference in how much sidewalk gets done, or, you know, maybe some improvement to a playground that we otherwise don’t have the money to do. And every penny counts. So anyway we can be more efficient,” Zembower said.
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But so far only one county in the state has made the switch: Sarasota County. Zembower said that’s because the process is not entirely without cost.
“We’re charged here at the county, of accommodating the other cities, the school board, the other government entities, and making sure that we all are disseminating through the same source,” he said. “The other challenge is in our case, here at Seminole County, we learned that our software is just not set up to do that right away.”
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County staff is looking at Sarasota County to see how they do it and they are also comparing legal opinions. They should have recommendations to the commission by March.
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