Please Provide an Accurate Accounting – AS IS REQUIRED BY ORDINANCE.
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From: Ted Noftall [mailto:Ted@tednoftall.com]
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2015 2:35 PM
To: Harden, David; Riehm, Tracey
Cc: Bob Ford; don@amlsfl.com; Drew Bastian; Green, Allen; Scott Stiltner
Subject: Irresponsible Storm water Rate Increase Request
Manager Harden,
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You and your hapless administration are behaving irresponsibility to be requesting double digit increases in the Non-Ad Valorem Storm water utility fee AFTER ADMITTING on multiple recent occasions that you are either un-able or un-willing to provide an accurate accounting for where these storm water revenues have been spent to date – AS IS REQUIRED BY ORDINANCE.
Annual statements of revenue and expenditures for the Storm water utility fund by project, including all matching dollars received, should be being produced as part of the normal reporting of a competent financial reporting system. They should be produced now, all be it after the fact, to provide Council with some rational basis on which to formulate policy direction.
Over the past decade Port Orange residents have been charged over $35,000,000 in non-Ad Valorem Storm water fees on their property tax bills. A modest assumption of only a dollar for dollar matching from other agencies means that at least $ 70,000,000 should have been spent on storm water abatement over the past 10 years, AND YOU in your capacity of City Manager cannot provide any such assurance that happened.
Taxpayers have every right to know not only where this money was spent but whether it was spent efficiently in accordance with a purposeful overall plan, before that are asked to pay any more of their hard earned money into this black hole.
Council followed advice from you and your predecessor to spend millions on meter replacement and to authorize a supposed 3% increase in sewer and reclaimed fees that has sadly resulted in double digit increases for some users. You and your staff have never provided anything beyond a kindergarten analysis of revenues flowing from these decisions, AND when Council questioned the water utility revenues they were given during the last Council meeting they received answers that were neither comprehensive, confident or convincing.
Enough is enough Mr. Manager.
If you are unable or un-willing to produce the ordinance mandated accurate accounting for all such annual Storm water revenues and expenditures in total and by project then
you need to defer your proposed Storm water rate increase request until Council and the citizens they represent are provided with verifiable assurance that a adequate tracking and reporting system has been successfully implemented that will comply with the strict accounting mandated by the decade old ordinance that established this Non- Ad Valorem assessment to begin with.
Ted Noftall
Candidate for Mayor
City of Port Orange -2016
We are not requesting a rate increase. We have presented a balanced budget based on current rates. We have also presented a list of operating expenses and capital projects which were requested by Public Works but are not funded in the budget I am presenting. In addition we have provided Council with calculations of the additional revenue which could be raised by various rate increases, if they were to choose to do so in order to fund additional requests. It is up to the City Council to determine whether any of these requests are important enough to justify any rate increase this year. They might also choose to remove from the recommended budget some items staff has included and add back in some item we have not funded in our proposed budget.