St. Pete Tax Controversy: Residents Overcharged $50 Million, Claims Ingoglia

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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) — Blaise Ingoglia, the Chief Financial Officer, leveled accusations against St. Petersburg’s city leaders on Wednesday, claiming they have been squandering taxpayer funds.

“St. Petersburg has been guilty of overtaxing and overspending, leading to a staggering $49.4 million in wasteful spending,” stated Ingoglia.

Florida has recently sanctioned additional reductions in auto insurance rates.

According to Ingoglia, this substantial amount was uncovered through an audit conducted over the past six years by the Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight (FAFO).

“This audit aims to enlighten voters about their local government’s spending habits, particularly in relation to inflation and population growth,” Ingoglia explained.

“The same methodology that we are applying to local governments here to come up with our numbers, the state of Colorado actually uses,” Ingoglia said.

The CFO said the city could’ve offered property owners tax relief last year.

“A property that was tax assessed at $400,000, you would’ve gotten a reduced property tax bill by $535,” Ingoglia said.

The CFO also argued why he thinks the city is able to cut spending, without touching essential services.

“For 11,500 new people coming into the City of St Pete, they added 371 new employees. That doesn’t make sense,” Ingoglia said. “Out of that 371, only 65 personnel were first responders.”

In a report sent to St. Pete Mayor Ken Welch on Wednesday, auditors cited other areas they see as wasteful pending. One example is a million dollars in salary increases at the mayor’s office in a single fiscal year. The report also stated $300,000 was spent on carbon reduction and vehicle promotion. The report also said the city spent $87,000 on an LGBTQ coordinator.

“They’re also going to use scare tactics. They’re going to say if we cut our budgets, we are going to have to cut fire, we’re going to have to cut police. Not true whatsoever,” Ingoglia said.

Mayor Welch released the following statement:

“Today, Florida’s CFO asserted statements about the City of St. Petersburg’s budget and said that any response or rebuttal from local government would just be a “spin.” He made it clear that any clarification or correction would be local governments “justifying excessive and wasteful spending.” We just received the report and while we work to verify his statements, the City of St. Petersburg remains transparent throughout our budget process. As we do every year, all year round, we encourage residents with questions about the City’s budget to review the documents posted on our website at www.stpete.org/budget.

Additionally, we encourage residents to view our property tax page for full, transparent information on how the City’s budget is allocated. St. Petersburg has nothing to hide, we value the transparency. Please see webpage here – http://www.stpete.org/propertytax.

Recent national events remind us of the harm that false and politically motivated official statements can create. The CFO’s claims are unsubstantiated and targeted to support the obvious political agenda of justifying property tax changes, regardless of the impacts on police and fire service delivery by local governments. We will continue to operate based on facts, not conjecture.”