TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – Chief Financial Officer Blaze Ingoglia mapped an example of considering wasteful spending in this week’s news release.
In Hillsboro County, Ingoglia aimed for $572,000 for unconscious biased workplace training for county employees.
Republican Hillsboro Chairman Joshua Wostal didn’t know the assignment until Ingoglia pointed it out. The commissioner is pleased that the CFO has made taxpayers aware.
“I honestly couldn’t define what ‘unconscious bias’ was, but it sounds like a 500,000-dollar wasteful property tax,” says Wostal.
The commissioner suspected this was spent before he could vote for the county’s annual budget, and said it would likely include diversity and equity efforts.
“Three or four of the five years they audited were the super majority of the previous five Democrats,” Wostal said.
The committee currently has a Republican supermajority.
The commissioner is waiting for county managers to answer workplace training responses, waiting for nearly $1 million in vehicle allowances for county employees.
“I think this is likely to be budgeting for executives on some sort of wage incentives, and if so, I’d like to see what each of those amounts has been approved,” Wostal said.
The commissioner will only manage the contracts of the county administrator and the county attorney. Other contracts for high-level employees are managed by managers.
“If it’s still miraculously on budget, I would be surprised if I missed it, so I’ll bring about a move next Wednesday when I met up to remove them,” Waustal said.
This new information comes a week after Ingoglia accused him of spending $279 million over the past five years.
Florida Doge is an effort to reduce or eliminate property taxes for major housing in cities and counties.
After an auditor visited the city of St. Petersburg, Ingoglia called for spending on the Pride event. A city spokesperson said $258,000 is the total over the two years. The city has a contract to pay 50% up to $300,000. In both years, the city said organizers had refunded the city. The amounts asked by Ingoglia are the total after the refund.
The CFO also flagged St. Petersburg’s $300,000 climate action plan. According to a spokesperson, the city used BP’s payment funds to pick up most bills and taxpayers an additional $14,000 tab.
As for the Pinellas County government, Ingoglia has questioned the Pride event at $75,000 a year. A county spokesperson said those funds were not from property taxes, but the county used hotel bed tax money. The spokesman continues, writing that pride will attract many visitors to the hotel and spend money on the entire area.
