Mystery Document Reappears | Courtesy of Ted
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“at last evening’s meeting he denied its very existence”
Ted Noftall via gmail.com
Attachments9:09 AM (
to Jake, Bob, don, Drew, Mayor, Scott
Good morning Manager Johansson,
Attached are the other Major Changes from FY 2015 that Manager Harden presented back on September 1st. At that presentation he failed to provide copies of this document to anyone and at last evening’s meeting he denied its very existence. What is going on here Manager Johansson if not a campaign of Arrogance, Incompetence and Obfuscation.
Earlier this week as part that AIO campaign Manager Harden suggested that I get with the Volusia County Tax Collector and obtain tax collection data that Port Orange should be maintaining and monitoring for itself. Attached also is a reply from the Tax Manager for Volusia County that is in sharp contract with the collection numbers that Manager Harden has been presenting in this year’s budget.
Despite this year’s budget development and presentation having been a disaster to date I would urge you to follow the Mayor’s request closely AND in the time remaining before final budget adoption, begin an honest dialogue with citizens interested in funding this year’s budget at no more and no less than what is required adequately run City government
Thank you
Ted Noftall
From: Ted Noftall [mailto:Ted@tednoftall.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2015 2:43 PM
To: ‘Harden, David’
Cc: ‘Johansson, Michael’; ‘Bob Ford’; ‘don@amlsfl.com’; ‘Drew Bastian’; ‘Green, Allen’; ‘Stiltner, Scott’
Subject: RE: Why are expected Property Taxes being understated.
Thank you for the additional information.
I am disappointed that this is but one more in a sorry train of underperforming revelations.
This information should be viewed as important to City interests, and it should be tracked by Finance.
—–Original Message—–
From: Harden, David [mailto:dharden@port-orange.org]
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2015 9:08 AM
To: Ted Noftall; Ted Noftall
Cc: Johansson, Michael; ‘Bob Ford’; don@amlsfl.com; ‘Drew Bastian’; Green, Allen; Stiltner, Scott
Subject: RE: Why are expected Property Taxes being understated.
The receivable list of unpaid property taxes is maintained by the county Tax Collector. This has been true since the State of Florida mandated centralization of appraisal and tax collection some 50 years ago. Before that cities appraised properties for tax purposes and collected their own property taxes.
I have been preparing city budget since 1977 except for two years when I was not working for a city. I know from personal experience as well as observation of other local governments that 90% of the time the city will collect between 95% and 96% of the property taxes levied. About 10% of the time collections may fall a little below 95%. State law requires that we budget at least 95%, and that is what most local governments budget.
From: Ted Noftall [mailto:Ted@tednoftall.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2015 5:58 PM
To: ‘Ted Noftall’; ‘Harden, David’
Cc: ‘Johansson, Michael’; ‘Bob Ford’; ‘don@amlsfl.com’; ‘Drew Bastian’; ‘Green, Allen’; ‘Stiltner, Scott’
Subject: RE: Why are expected Property Taxes being understated.
What do you mean this information is not readily available — Doesn’t the City keep a receivable listing of un-paid taxes it is owed by year ??
AND further if that information is not readily available then I would presume neither has it been analyzed — AND if that is the case how did you determine that understating budgeted revenues by 5% or $ 572, 946 is the appropriate number as opposed to 3% or 6% or any other % ??
—–Original Message—–
From: Harden, David [mailto:dharden@port-orange.org]
Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2015 3:14 PM
To: Ted Noftall
Cc: Johansson, Michael; ‘Bob Ford’; don@amlsfl.com; ‘Drew Bastian’; Green, Allen; Stiltner, Scott
Subject: RE: Why are expected Property Taxes being understated.
That information is not readily available to me. Perhaps the Volusia County Tax Collector could answer your question.
From: Ted Noftall [mailto:Ted@tednoftall.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2015 2:36 PM
To: ‘Harden, David’
Cc: ‘Johansson, Michael’; ‘Bob Ford’; ‘don@amlsfl.com’; ‘Drew Bastian’; ‘Green, Allen’; ‘Stiltner, Scott’
Subject: RE: Why are expected Property Taxes being understated.
So Manager Harden can you disclose the delinquent amounts and the actual collection percentage for the past 4 or 5 years.
From: Harden, David [mailto:dharden@port-orange.org]
Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2015 2:20 PM
To: Ted Noftall
Cc: Johansson, Michael; Bob Ford; don@amlsfl.com; Drew Bastian; Green, Allen; Stiltner, Scott
Subject: RE: Why are expected Property Taxes being understated.
1. The Delinquent ad valorem tax amounts shown on page one of attachment three are the amounts of delinquent taxes actually paid , not the amount of unpaid taxes outstanding. The total amounts which are delinquent are higher.
2. Don’t forget that property owners who pay their taxes early, which most do, receive a 4% discount. If all property owners did that our revenue would be reduced to 96% without taking into account delinquencies and adjustments.
3. The property tax roll is not yet final. It is not final until the Value Adjustment Board finishes its work. Property owners can appeal their assessed taxable value to the Value Adjustment Board and if the Board reduces their assessment, that reduces the City’s tax revenue.
In my experience property tax revenue usually falls between 95% and 96%. I have experienced more than one occasion where property tax revenues ended up at less than 95%. In Port Orange’s current budget property taxes were estimated at 96 ½%, and we are going to fall short of that projection. I did find that other revenue sources, such as Utility Taxes, Franchise Fees, State Revenue Sharing and Sales Taxes had in the past, in my opinion, been underestimated. In the Tentative Budget for FY 2016 all of those have been estimated at what we believe are the highest possible prudent level.
From: Ted Noftall [mailto:Ted@tednoftall.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2015 6:50 AM
To: Harden, David
Cc: Johansson, Michael; Bob Ford; don@amlsfl.com; Drew Bastian; Green, Allen; Scott Stiltner
Subject: Why are expected Property Taxes being understated.
CAUTION – This email is from an external sender. Do not open email attachments or click any links from unknown senders.
Good morning Manager Harden,
I believe Page 1 the 3rd attachment at Agenda item 8 for the 09-09-15 CC meeting discloses the historical delinquency rate for un-collected property taxes as being $ 21,583 for FY 13, $ 31,906 for FY 14, and $ 20,400 for FY 2015. These numbers represent a delinquency rate of approximately 2/10ths of 1% of property taxes levied for each of those years.
Have I understood those numbers correctly ?? AND IF SO
Would you explain why you are understating expected property tax revenues by a 5% allowance of $572,946 which is some 25 times larger than the historical delinquency rate.
Adjusting this one number to the City’s actual historical collection rate would eliminate the need for the proposed 3% property tax increase.
I am having great difficulty understanding why you are continuing past practices of understating projected revenues and overstating projected expenses (that in many instances have not been thoughtfully considered) that have led to what everyone on Council considers to be unwarrantedly high reserve balances.
Have one or more Councilmen been giving you direction in private that they are not stating in public ?
Thank you
Ted Noftall
Candidate for Mayor
City of Port Orange -2016
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One way to start saving money is to cut ties with Mr. Harden and his $3,000 a week salary.
And take BoyWonder with him
Is there never an end to the lies and deceit coming out of the Manager and his incompetent Finance staff. and without Ted who would be there to expose it ?
Certainly not the team players Bastien and Stiltner who are as useless as Kennedy and Pohlmann they replaced AND ESPECIALLY NOT ‘ BLOWHARD ‘ BURNETTE.
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I have watched Ted fighting a corrupt City Hall on POG TV for years now and I will say I have never seen such a confident and mannerly citizen activist in my life.
He has been persistent in his efforts to expose a culture of corruption that developed under 30 years of Green and Parker. When Green is gone next December I hope Ted will be there to return City Hall to something we can all be proud of.
Is Boy Wonder going to get the permanent job ?
I too expected much more from Stiltner and Bastian. It’s not there. They both have their own agenda.
Would love to see Ted attain a council seat, I just feel he will not be able to defeat Burnette in the 2016 Mayoral race. If he is hell bent on being Mayor, he may again be on the outside looking in.
At least Mayor Green Jeans will be gone. He has got progressively worse in his treatment of citizens and peers. He acts like a total illiterate on the podium having to be guided by others when reading. He does not utilize e-mail and does not respond to citizens. The 2016 race can’t come fast enough.
Mr Stiltner and Mr Bastian, take note: change your ways and represent the citizens.
Exactly what has Burnette brought to the table much less accomplished in his 5 years on Council ?.
well if you think ted is your answer to be on council please explain why. He is a bully, I would bet if you put him on a poly graph and asked him about woman’s rights he would fail. I do think sometimes he has good points but most of the time he is a huge asshole who is a bully to most people. He likes to get on a high horse and decide he is is right and everyone else is wrong, I often wonder if he became mayor would he try to fire every department head the city has. Sometimes I wish he would win, so I could watch him fail more then any other mayor in history, he is an arrogant asshole who bullies everyone he thinks is not as smart as him, this will probably not be posted I have been banned from this site before because I did not agree. Ted as mayor is like Hitler in charge of the Jews, he is a horrible asshole an should never be in charge of the city. He does have a following and sometimes has good points but for the most part he is an arrogant ass who thinks he is better then everyone else. Ted only will help a small group of citizens who he thinks is worth hearing, I look forward to him getting his butt beat in the election. If he was a nice man I would vote for him, but he is an arrogant ass an I can not vote for him.
I agree with many of your points. Ted should take a Dale Carnegie course. His approach and delivery leave a lot to be desired.
But his homework and accountability vs. the city is something nobody else can do.
A council seat may be the ticket. What have we got to lose ? If you want to talk about arrogance and a bully see Mayor Green.
As long as we are on the subject of criticizing councilmen, hey what about that Drew Bastian???? Not one intelligent statement ever comes out of his mouth. He sits there like a confused kid and then when it’s his turn to comment he parrots whatever the others say. Duh.
Drew was pathetic enough when there was only Ford leading him by the nose. Now that his idol Stiltner is on council Drew is torn between which one to follow. . Weak councilman with nothing to say who will be replaced in next election.
Excellent spot on analysis !
FYI the new city manager has for all practical purposes as a part of his strategic communications initiative effectively phased out the city manager read file. He has announced in front of numerous city employees that he does not feel his email address should be open to the citizens as a public blog. This may not yet be known to all of the council members or the city activists yet but it will become abundantly clear soon. Hopefully the council does not give its assent to this kind of arrogant autocratic behavior that abjectly disrespects our elected officials, citizens, and workforce.He has also announced something to the effect that he does not want the citizen activists having that kind of access to him and is not in favor of their participation in open and transparent governance. There has been no posts on the read file for two days now, and it has been observed that certain emails sent to the city manager are not being posted on the read file. He has been progressively dialing down the read file over the past two weeks to see if he gets a negative response. Since there has been no resistance he has continue to do so until it has been effectively phased out. The general perception from a number of people from within the organization is that part of his SITREP is to control & order the city council around, shut down employee due process under civil service, destroy open & transparent governance, and eradicate dissenting citizen activism & community participation in city affairs. It looks like he thinks he has a new military base to command and citizens, elected officials, and employees are part of his enlisted subordinates under his unquestioned command. This means that he may not be able to acclimate to civilian life and comport himself as a public servant instead of a military commander. Unless someone sets him straight it looks like were all in the Navy now.