Florida public officials file annual financial disclosure forms to the Commission on Ethics every summer – including members of the Sarasota City Commission.
Two of the commissioners, Vice Mayor Debbie Trice and Kathy Kelly Ohlrich, are retired. Mayor Liz Alpert is a practicing attorney, and Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch operates a marketing firm. Commissioner Kyle Battie did not report an income outside of his salary as an elected official.
The state of financial disclosure forms has been in flux since 2023, when the Florida legislature passed a law that would have required local officials to disclose more details about their personal finances by submitting what are called Form 6s. The law triggered the resignation of over 125 local elected officials. Since then, a federal judge has blocked the order, and the law is going through the judicial process.
Currently, elected officials are only required to file a Form 1, which discloses fewer financial details. Few of the city commissioners have publicly available net worths; they also are not required to report properties they own and live in.
Mayor Liz Alpert
In 2024, Alpert collected income from her law firm, Alpert Law P.A., and from Social Security. Her firm has been registered with the state of Florida since 2006 and specializes in family law, wills, and estate planning. Sarasota County court records indicate the cases the mayor worked on in 2024 had to do with divorce and child custody.
Net worth: Mayor Alpert reported her 2023 net worth as $102,515; she did not report her net worth for 2024, nor her assets and liabilities.
Property: A condominium valued by the Sarasota County Property Appraiser at $525,200.
Vice Mayor Debbie Trice
Trice collects Social Security, a pension from IBM, and from a variety of mutual funds. Her income sources have been consistent since she first submitted a financial disclosure form for 2022.
She is also a title director of the Suncoast Partnership to End Homelessness, along with State Rep. Fiona McFarland (R-Sarasota).
Net worth: Over $1.5 million as of February 2024.
Property: None reported.
Commissioner Jen Ahearn-Koch
Ahearn-Koch collected income from her marketing and design company, JAKConsults, as well as from the city for her commissioner’s salary.
She also serves on the board of supervisors for the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program.
Net worth: Unreported.
Property: A single-family home assessed by the Sarasota County Property Appraiser at $406,100.
Commissioner Kathy Kelly Ohlrich
Ohlrich’s only sources of income, according to her 2024 disclosure, came from two retirement accounts and a pension from the State Teachers Retirement Fund of Ohio. She also appears to own a condominium through a trust.
The commissioner has been filing financial disclosure forms since 2019, when she was a member of the Sarasota Planning Board.
Net worth: Unreported.
Property: A condominium owned by the Katherine Kelley-Ohlrich Trust, valued at $173,1000 by the Sarasota County Property Appraiser.
Commissioner Kyle Battie
Battie’s most recent financial disclosure form for 2024 listed his city commission salary as his only income. He has never reported any property ownership or secondary income as a commissioner, nor his net worth.
In 2022 and 2023, Battie reported to the Florida Commission on Ethics that he had received income from the “Birthright Family Limited Partnership,” which an investigation by the Herald-Tribune found was a shell corporation owned by a local developer named Thomas Balzer, whom Battie helped gain access to city hall in order to redevelop the former Stardust Skating Rink.
Battie is also a volunteer board member of the Pines of Sarasota, a senior rehabilitation non-profit, and of the Bay Park Conservancy.
Net worth: Unreported.
Property: None reported.
He listed a local engineering consulting firm called DTC as his employer while he was a city commissioner in 2021.
(This story has been updated to remove duplicated paragraphs.)
Christian Casale covers local government for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Email him at ccasale@gannett.com or christiancasale@protonmail.com
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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: What are they worth? Sarasota commissioners report finances, but key details stay hidden
Reporting by Christian Casale, Sarasota Herald-Tribune / Sarasota Herald-Tribune
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