TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia mapped out examples of what he considers wasteful spending in a news release this week.
In Hillsborough County, Ingoglia took aim at $572,000 for unconscious bias workplace training for county employees.
Republican Hillsborough Commissioner Joshua Wostal wasn’t aware of this allocation until Ingoglia pointed it out. The commissioner is glad the CFO made taxpayers aware.
“I honestly couldn't give you a definition of what ‘unconscious bias’ is, but it sounds like a half-million dollars of wasted property taxes,” Wostal said.
The commissioner suspects this was spent before he was able to vote on the yearly county budget and said it likely involved diversity and equity efforts.
"Three or four of the five years that they audited were the previous five-two democrat supermajority,” Wostal said.
The commission now has a republican supermajority.
The commissioner is waiting on the county administrator for answers on the workplace training and close to a million dollars on county employee vehicle allowance, that also concerned Ingoglia.
“I'm assuming this was likely budgeted for executives on some type of pay incentive. If that was, I’d like to see what those amounts were approved for, for each one,” Wostal said.
Commissioners only manage contracts for the county administrator and the county attorney. Other contracts for high-level employees are managed by the administrator.
“If it's still in the budget miraculously because I'd be surprised if I missed it, I'd immediately bring a motion to next Wednesday when we meet to remove those,” Wostal said.
This new information comes a week after Ingoglia accused the county of overspending $279 million over the last five years.
The Florida DOGE is an effort to get cities and counties to reduce or eliminate property taxes on primary residences.
After auditors visited the City of St. Petersburg, Ingoglia called out the spending for Pride events. A city spokesperson said the $258,000 was a sum for two years. The city has an agreement to pay 50% up to $300,000. In both those years, the city said organizers reimbursed the city. The amount questioned by Ingoglia is the sum after the reimbursement.
The CFO also flagged a $300,000 climate action plan for St. Petersburg. The city used BP settlement money to foot most of the bill and taxpayers picked up the additional $14,000 tab, according to a spokesperson.
As for the Pinellas County government, Ingoglia questioned $75,000 a year going to Pride events. A county spokesperson said those funds were not from property taxes, instead the county used hotel bed tax money. The spokesperson went on to write that Pride attracts many visitors to hotels and they spend money throughout the area.