Former Florida Senate President Ken Pruitt, who resigned his legislative seat in 2009 for a combination of family and economic concerns, announced today he will run in the election to replace the late St. Lucie County Property Appraiser Jeff Furst.

Furst, 68, died of a stroke last week.

Furst’s term as appraiser ran through January 2013. The election to fill the last two years of his term will coincide with this year’s general election. A special period for candidates to qualify for the ballot for the appraiser’s race has been set for Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“Jeff Furst left a legacy of dedicated public service; St. Lucie County and the state of Florida have been enriched by his commitment to excellence,” Pruitt said in a prepared statement.

Pruitt is now a governmental affairs consultant in the Port St. Lucie office of the Boca Raton-based Weiss Handler Angelos & Cornwell law firm. He also has a real estate license.

“My experience in real estate combined with the knowledge I gained from my service in Tallahassee make me uniquely qualified to hold this position,” Pruitt said. “I won’t pretend to ever fill the huge shoes left behind by Jeff Furst; however, I do commit to maintaining the high level of service and expertise he instilled in his professional staff at the Property Appraiser’s office.”

Pruitt, 53, is a Republican who held a state House seat from 1990 to 2000, when he was elected to a Treasure Coast and Palm Beach County Senate seat. He was Senate president from 2006 to 2008.

After his 2009 resignation, Republican Joe Negron won a special election to fill the remainder of Pruitt’s Senate term. Negron was reelected to a new four-year term this year when no one filed to challenge him.

An error in St. Lucie County Property Appraiser Jeff Furst’s database caused confusion over whether the state ever took title to a $14 million building it owns in Ft. Pierce.

Furst told a Senate committee this morning that his records showed the state had never transferred the title from the City of Ft. Pierce, which gave the land to the state in 1988.

The state actually took ownership of the property in 1989, according to the Department of Management Services.

Senate budget chief ordered DMS officials in January to create a database of all state-owned properties – more than 17,000 buildings – so lawmakers could consolidate workers and possibly save money on expensive leases.

DMS has not been able to do that yet and wants to hire a private vendor to help create the database.

Furst told Alexander’s Ways and Means Committee that the task should be simple: all of the state’s 67 property appraisers submit a list of all the properties – including those owned by the state – and their values to the Department of Revenue each year.

Furst’s records should be updated tonight to show that the state has taken ownership of the building, DMS spokeswoman Linda McDonald said.

“This is a good example of why this is a big important job because different databases need to be kept up to date,” she said. “We want you and your readers to understand that we have always known where of our buildings are. That’s never been the issue. The issue has been getting this complete data set that provides valuation for those properties.”

St. Lucie County Property Appraiser Jeff Furst wants to help out frustrated Senate budget chief J.D. Alexander who’s been trying to get a handle on how many buildings the state owns and where they are.

Furst told Alexander’s Ways and Means Committee this morning that he and each of the state’s 67 property appraisers already have a list of state-owned properties that they submit to the state Department of Revenue every year.

There are more than 800 state-owned properties worth at least $400 million in St. Lucie County, Furst told the committee. And that doesn’t include a parcel worth $14 million the state has owned for more than 20 years but never bothered to take title of.

The city of Ft. Pierce donated the land for the building to the state, Furst said. He was surprised to learn that it wasn’t included on the list of state-owned properties and discovered that state officials never took ownership of the property although the warranty deed and other documents were sent to them in 1988.

Alexander, a Lake Wales Republican whose district includes part of St. Lucie County, ordered Department of Management Services Secretary Linda South in January to come up with an inventory of the state’s real property. She hasn’t been able to do that yet. Instead, she wants to hire a private company to help find the missing buildings and create a database of them.

Property appraisers could create the database within 90 days, Furst said.

“Nobody will need anything other than some good cooperation and a state plan,” Furst said.

Management Services officials grabbed Furst after he testified and immediately set up a meeting with him to see what he could do to help them with their task, which Alexander put into state law.

The state is fully aware that it “owns” the building, which still shows up on the tax rolls as belonging to the city of Ft. Pierce. The building is fully occupied by state workers, DMS Chief of Staff Ken Granger said, and the state officials know they “own” it.