In resolving a case that took more turns than a car on a California mountain road, the Florida Supreme Court sided with Gulf Breeze in a years-old legal dispute between the city and the county attorney’s office. Santa Rosa County Real Estate Appraiser. tax-exempt status of Tiger Point Golf Club in Pensacola.

It was in 2016 that Property Appraiser Greg Brown’s office first challenged the golf course’s exempt status.

The course first came into the hands of Gulf Breeze in 2012 when the city purchased it with the primary motivation of using it as a location to dispose of treated wastewater effluent from its water treatment facility. wastewater.

It was run as a municipal course until late 2015 and enjoyed uncontested government tax-exempt status for three years.

But after the city hired a private, for-profit company called IGC to manage the golf course and its amenities — which included a restaurant — questions arose about whether the deal amounted to a lease, and in 2016 the property appraiser sent a tax bill.

The city questioned this action and took its case to a value adjustment commission, which overturned the denial of exemption, finding that the agreement between Gulf Breeze and IGC was a “management contract” by opposition to a lease. The property appraiser’s office requested reconsideration by filing suit in Circuit Court.

The property appraiser also denied the city’s exemption request for the golf course in 2017. In doing so, he expanded his denial arguments in part by arguing that the property was used as a “government property function.” rather than as a “government-government function”. function,” says the Supreme Court’s summary of judicial events.

In the consolidated cases, the Circuit Court entered final summary judgment in favor of the city and agreed with its findings with the VAB, holding that the agreement with the IGC was a management agreement and not a lease. He ruled that the 2016 and 2017 exemptions were valid.

The real estate appraiser appealed the Circuit Court’s decision, and in 2022, the First District Court of Appeal sided with his office. It also posed a certified question for the Supreme Court to answer.

“Is a city’s public golf course still ‘used exclusively by it for municipal or public purposes’ such that it remains tax-exempt…if the city entrusts the course and its associated facilities to a private company to operate and manage it on behalf of the company. own profit or loss in exchange for an annual fee the company pays to the city for the privilege,” the question states.

The issue has been certified as being “of great public importance,” meaning the high court’s response could have legal consequences for the entire state.

Before giving their answer, the Supreme Court justices decided to rhetorically rephrase the Court of Appeal’s question.

“Based on this line of analysis, we rephrase the certified question as follows,” the decision reads: “Is a municipally owned golf course over which the municipality exercises extensive control excluded from the exemption (under the law) because a management company used by the municipality in the exploitation of the property is remunerated not by a fixed fee but on the basis of a formula linked to the difference between the income and expenses? » asked the court.

“We answer that question in the negative,” the justices said in response to their own inquiry.

The court held that Tiger Point Golf Course had historically been used exclusively by the city and, therefore, its ad valorem tax exemption under the Florida Constitution for certain municipally owned properties was in effect even after the city entered into a management agreement with IGC.

It did so because Gulf Breeze “retained and exercised extensive control over the ownership of the golf course and the management company’s operation of the property” and the formula-based compensation by which the city collects part of Tiger Point Golf Course’s annual revenue has not failed. the city’s ad valorem exemption, the Supreme Court said.