Talk about FAFO!
Blaise Ingoglia, the state’s Chief Financial Officer and obsessive critic of all things local government, dropped by Palm Beach State College as part of his ongoing Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight tour. In recent months, he has been travelling the state accusing a select group of cities and counties of mismanagement and massive overspending.
His crusade is both timely and conveninent. It occurs as voters face a controversial amendment to significantly reduce local property taxes and the upcoming decision in November to re-elect Ingoglia as Florida’s CFO. The stop here recently offered another chance to bash Palm Beach County for what still appears to be unsubstantiated spending woes.
But what started as an open mic to badmouth the county became a real grudge match when County Administrator Joseph Abruzzo showed up, climbed onstage and confronted Ingoglia. “Battle-tested Joe” obviously wasn’t having it.
“I’ve been trying to get you to come down and sit with me, sit with our budget staff, sit with our board of county commissioners, and go through everything,” Abruzzo told Ingoglia.
“Sit with the taxpayers and listen to them,” Ingoglia shot back.
The confrontation didn’t last long. The two shook hands, but Ingoglia left the stage, shouting counterpoints from the back of the room as Abruzzo began pushing back on the argument that county officials had wasted taxpayer dollars.
President Trump should have had this one on his White House Ultimate Fighting Championship fight card.
Spending allegations part of Florida’s war on local governments
There’s no doubt that it’s becoming more and more costly to live in Palm Beach County and many other parts of Florida. Whether it’s auto insurance premiums, diesel fuel, or beef at the grocery store, the prices keep going up. Consumers feel it. So too do local government officials who are constantly pressed to improve services but somehow have to find ways to deal with ever-increasing costs to do so.
Cities and counties have to pay to pave streets, widen roads, maintain parks and add sewage and water connections to all these newly built apartment complexes, gated communities and office parks that keep springing up. Guess where a significant part of that money to pay for those services comes from? Yup, local property taxes.
If the CFO had his way, he’d ask voters to adopt a Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, TABOR, a measure that would place a cap on future government spending by tying it to inflation and population growth. Ingoglia has said he used the consumer price index and population increases to determine what reasonable spending increases should be and apparently to back his claim that Palm Beach County has somehow overspent $344 million the past five years.
The state of Colorado adopted TABOR in 1992 with mixed results. One one hand, the state issued refunds during times of state surpluses. On the other hand, the spending restrictions forced local governments to either cut back on services or find creative ways to skirt the initiative by raising fees or approving local referenda to ignore TABOR altogether. The initiative may not provide quick relief in Florida since state economists have warned of upcoming budget shortfalls.
Abruzzo has consistently responded that it is wrong to use consumer spending and population growth as a metric for government spending because public-sector costs far exceed that of the Consumer Price Index. Last December, Abruzzo filed a public records request, asking Ingoglia to provide any supporting data behind the CFO’s excessive spending claims. Ingoglia’s office responded but produced little proof to back up his big-spending allegations.
In fact, Ingoglia admitted in a recent Florida Politico Playbook report that his office failed to do line-by-line audits of local spending. He plans to do more in-depth audits in the future. Meanwhile, it’s left to local officials like Abruzzo and many others to keep fighting for fiscal reality in Florida’s grudge match against local governments.
Douglas C. Lyons is an editorial writer and columnist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network-Florida. He can be reached at dclyons@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: County, state CFO fight card reflects state grudge match | Opinion
Reporting by Douglas C. Lyons, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Douglas C. Lyons, Palm Beach Post | USA TODAY Network
