Fla. Stat. § 39.8297

This is the official text of Fla. Stat. § 39.8297, part of Florida’s Stat — part of the compiled statutory law of Florida, published by the state as "Stat." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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39.8297 County funding for guardian ad litem employees.

Official statutory text

(1) A county and the executive director of the Statewide Guardian ad Litem Office may enter into an agreement by which the county agrees to provide funds to the local guardian ad litem office in order to employ persons who will assist in the operation of the guardian ad litem office in the county.

(2) The agreement, at a minimum, must provide that: (a) Funding for the persons who are employed will be provided on at least a fiscal-year basis. (b) The persons who are employed will be hired, supervised, managed, and terminated by the executive director of the Statewide Guardian ad Litem Office. The statewide office is responsible for compliance with all requirements of federal and state employment laws, and shall fully indemnify the county from any liability under such laws, as authorized by s. 768.28(19), to the extent such liability is the result of the acts or omissions of the Statewide Guardian ad Litem Office or its agents or employees. (c) The county is the employer for purposes of s. 440.10 and chapter 443. (d) Employees funded by the county under this section and other county employees may be aggregated for purposes of a flexible benefits plan pursuant to s. 125 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. (e) Persons employed under this section may be terminated after a substantial breach of the agreement or because funding to the guardian ad litem office has expired.

(3) Persons employed under this section may not be counted in a formula or similar process used by the Statewide Guardian ad Litem Office to measure personnel needs of a judicial circuit’s guardian ad litem office.

(4) Agreements created pursuant to this section do not obligate the state to allocate funds to a county to employ persons in the guardian ad litem office.

History: s. 6, ch. 2012-123; s. 34, ch. 2024-70.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.