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10 Good Minutes: Florida CFO Blaise Ingoglia Joins Preston · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Thirty five minutes past the hour. Good to be with
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  Speaker 1: you this morning. Halfway through the Friday edition of The
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  Speaker 1: Morning Show with Preston Scott Jose Over there in Studio
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  Speaker 1: one A. I'm here in Study one B, joined by
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  Speaker 1: former member of the Florida House of Representatives, then served
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  Speaker 1: in the Florida Senate, then was chosen by Governor round
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  Speaker 1: DeSantis to be the CFO, and he is blazing Golia Blaze.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the program. How are you, sir, I'm great, sir.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: How are you?
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  Speaker 1: I'm doing well. I'm curious as we get closer to
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  Speaker 1: the voting in November for the property tax amendment. You've
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  Speaker 1: gone around the state. You've made the case for the
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  Speaker 1: ridiculous spending that's been happening across the state in cities
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  Speaker 1: and counties. But I get the feeling that that amendment
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  Speaker 1: was crafted to fail. I think the legislature failed the governor.
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  Speaker 1: But what's your perspective on it.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I don't think it was necessarily crafted to fail.
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  Speaker 2: I would say that some of the stuff that they
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  Speaker 2: pulled out is going to make it a little bit
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  Speaker 2: harder to pass. Look, at the end of the day,
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  Speaker 2: it's up to the voters. I view. My job is
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  Speaker 2: going around and really exposing how much money they are
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  Speaker 2: wasting compared to inflation and population growth compared to the
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  Speaker 2: year's past. And the funny thing is is most of
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  Speaker 2: the analysis that these local governments are coming out with
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  Speaker 2: saying that they're going to lose a certain dollar amount
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  Speaker 2: of revenue. If you look at my projections, it's almost
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  Speaker 2: it's eerily similar of how much they're going to quote
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  Speaker 2: unquote lose. The first thing is that that just goes
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  Speaker 2: to show you that they can actually cut a lot
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  Speaker 2: out of their budget, reduced property taxes and not harm
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  Speaker 2: essential services because they were doing it just a couple
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  Speaker 2: of years ago. And the second thing is is that
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  Speaker 2: anytime government quote unquote loses, that means the taxpayers gain.
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  Speaker 2: And there's an affordability issue here in the state of Artists.
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  Speaker 2: I want everyone to be clear when you have people
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  Speaker 2: coming out. It's like the Democrat Party came out the
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  Speaker 2: other day and officially said we are against property tax cuts.
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  Speaker 2: You cannot argue for affordability and then say that you're
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  Speaker 2: not against you are against making things affordable by cutting
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  Speaker 2: property taxes. That makes you a hypocrite.
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  Speaker 1: The problem that is being pointed out though, is that
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  Speaker 1: because there is really no mechanism to keep costs from
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  Speaker 1: being shifted, cities and counties are going to do it.
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  Speaker 1: And that's the big problem here with the amendment is
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  Speaker 1: they didn't lock it down so that renters don't get squeezed,
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  Speaker 1: that property owners don't get squeezed in terms of business property.
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  Speaker 1: And so as you look at this, I mean, look,
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  Speaker 1: I'm a practical guy. I've been arguing for the elimination
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  Speaker 1: of property tax since two thousand and two when I
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  Speaker 1: started this program Blaze. The fact of the matter is
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  Speaker 1: I don't see it passing. So with that possibility in mind,
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  Speaker 1: is your office looking at Okay, if this passes, we
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  Speaker 1: do this. If it doesn't pass, as we do that,
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  Speaker 1: Because you're well versed in the legislative process, what is
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  Speaker 1: out there that the legislature should consider doing to fix
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  Speaker 1: the amendment if it doesn't pass. Offers some things that
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  Speaker 1: if it does.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So actually that's a great question, and that's my
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  Speaker 2: concern also. So I would say this is that if
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  Speaker 2: this does not pass, then we go right back at
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  Speaker 2: it again and we put another one on the ballot.
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  Speaker 2: And we were just we're just going to continue to
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  Speaker 2: fight for property tax reform. But if we do get
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  Speaker 2: property tax reform, the thing remains is what you just
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  Speaker 2: alluded to is that these local governments are going to
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  Speaker 2: cost shift and they're going to raise fees, and they're
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  Speaker 2: just going to try to not cut their budget. They're
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  Speaker 2: just going to draw the money in from someplace else.
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  Speaker 2: That's why I am promising that at some point in
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  Speaker 2: the future during my tenure CFO, and it's going to
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  Speaker 2: be sooner rather than later, I want to propose another
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  Speaker 2: constitutional amendment, which is a taxpayer bill or right, okay,
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  Speaker 2: I would simply say that you cannot you cannot increase
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  Speaker 2: your budget more than inflation plus population, and if you do,
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  Speaker 2: then you have to refunded to the taxpayers. This will
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  Speaker 2: prevent all these local governments from raising fees and putting
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  Speaker 2: another assessment on your property, because no matter how much
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  Speaker 2: you look to cut from property taxes, they are going
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  Speaker 2: to try to get the money from somewhere else because
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  Speaker 2: they are not physical responsible, they do not want to
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  Speaker 2: be fiscal responsible, and they do not want to be
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  Speaker 2: held accountable to the taxpayers. And the only way to
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  Speaker 2: do that is to constitutionally restrain them from spending. So
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  Speaker 2: Taybor is a spending cap and that's what we need
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  Speaker 2: in the State of Florida long term.
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  Speaker 1: He helps you make the argument the communicator of common sense.
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  Speaker 1: It's The Morning Show with Preston Scott Lazy Golia, chief
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  Speaker 1: financial Officer for the State of Florida. I guess for
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  Speaker 1: just a few more minutes. He's always been kind enough
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  Speaker 1: to make time for us here on the program. Blasee
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  Speaker 1: I did a story yesterday where Bloomberg did a study
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  Speaker 1: using federal data finding that the the cost of living
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  Speaker 1: in the Miami metro area was five percent higher than
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  Speaker 1: the New York City metro area. Adding to that is
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  Speaker 1: that Miami's inflation rate is second highest in the country,
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  Speaker 1: only second to Tampa since COVID. What if anything can
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  Speaker 1: the State of Florida can lawmakers do to address the
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  Speaker 1: issues that are raising costs for back to the key
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  Speaker 1: word affordability in the State of Florida.
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  Speaker 2: Jill Look, I think a lot of this goes to
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  Speaker 2: controlling government spending. Also, one of the reasons why we
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  Speaker 2: have inflation across the United States period is reckless policies
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  Speaker 2: coming out of Washington, d C. Specifically the trillions and
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  Speaker 2: trillions of dollars that were spent during COVID under the
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  Speaker 2: Biden administration, Right, that really sparked a lot of that
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  Speaker 2: that lit the fire of inflation. That's why a lot
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  Speaker 2: of really good physical conservatives are pushed back when the
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  Speaker 2: federal government spends that much money. But locally, what everyone
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  Speaker 2: has to remember is that govern spending in itself is
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  Speaker 2: inherently inflationary, and Miami Dade is one of the worst
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  Speaker 2: defenders in the state when it comes to wasting money.
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  Speaker 2: They they are wasteful and excessive. Spending number for this
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  Speaker 2: fiscal year is close to a half a billion dollars.
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  Speaker 2: Their budget went up a billion dollars. Actually, their budget
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  Speaker 2: went up eight hundred million dollars over the last three years.
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  Speaker 2: They hired thirty five hundred new government employees for only
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  Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty five thousand new people. So when
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  Speaker 2: you hear stories like that, my brain goes to, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: makes sense government spending. So how do you fix a
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  Speaker 2: lot of inflationary pressures? You fix government spending.
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  Speaker 1: Along that same line, one of the things that I
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  Speaker 1: know that you've got to be addressing is tort reform.
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  Speaker 1: We've had some progress while you were in the in
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  Speaker 1: the state Senate. But what needs to be done to
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  Speaker 1: maybe put that thing in a death grip and be
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  Speaker 1: done with that.
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  Speaker 2: So it's working, it's there. I will tell you that
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  Speaker 2: when you look at tort reform, you have to look
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  Speaker 2: at the auto policies, and you have to look at
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  Speaker 2: your homeowners policies. Auto policies are dropping precipitously, and everyone
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  Speaker 2: predicted that because there are six month policies and it's
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  Speaker 2: easier for those rates to actually go down. We've had
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  Speaker 2: three companies give a billion dollars back on the homeowners.
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  Speaker 2: It's actually happening. Thirty three states have had double digit increases.
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  Speaker 2: Our increase was less than one percent. But there are
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  Speaker 2: huge stories. Now I'm going to tell you. I had
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  Speaker 2: a friend of mine, he was on X was complaining
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  Speaker 2: about his policy was ninety two hundred dollars for the year.
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  Speaker 2: So he sent the policy and I asked him, I said,
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  Speaker 2: send me last year's deck page. In the year before
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  Speaker 2: that a I found an error on his deck page
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  Speaker 2: and I told him to go shop not with this
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  Speaker 2: current broker, but with an independent agent, and his policy
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  Speaker 2: went from ninety two hundred down to twenty five hundred dollars.
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  Speaker 2: What I'm there are twenty new company's writings since tort reform.
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  Speaker 2: People may not know this, but there are there's a
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  Speaker 2: whole bunch of new companies that are willing to take
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  Speaker 2: your business at the same at the same level of coverage,
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  Speaker 2: with dramatically less premiums. Go and shop. You'll be amazed
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  Speaker 2: at what you can find. But the story here is
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  Speaker 2: stopping all of the fraud in the system that had
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  Speaker 2: caused a lot of these rates to go up over
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  Speaker 2: the years, and we have stopped that. The question isn't
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  Speaker 2: as much as how much is my policy now? It's
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  Speaker 2: how much could it have been if we didn't do
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  Speaker 2: tort reform. And I'm going to answer that question for
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  Speaker 2: you a lot more.
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  Speaker 1: Last question before I let you go, and again I
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  Speaker 1: appreciate you wedging some time out Blaze for us this morning.
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  Speaker 1: If we were to address all of these different issues,
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  Speaker 1: what's left to be done. One of the things that
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  Speaker 1: you and I talked about the last time you were
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  Speaker 1: on the show was the potential of auditing the school
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  Speaker 1: districts across the state and seeing because you know, for example,
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  Speaker 1: here in Leon County, they're trying to raise money to
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  Speaker 1: pay teachers when in fact they're staffing is way overboard
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  Speaker 1: on the district level. Yeah, where are you on that?
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  Speaker 1: And what's left to be done in your mind over
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  Speaker 1: the issues you've already been addressing.
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  Speaker 2: So we're going to continue doing legislative reforms. We're going
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  Speaker 2: to keep on proposing constitutional amendments. I will get this done.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not going to stop fighting. As far as school boards,
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  Speaker 2: we are in a process of putting school boards into
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  Speaker 2: two different buckets. Ones that just get funded by the
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  Speaker 2: day through the FBFB and another one. The bucket is
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  Speaker 2: the ones that have all this sextra military and sales
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  Speaker 2: at tax, and that's where we're seeing a lot of
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  Speaker 2: this sexcess. But I will tell you that sometime in September,
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  Speaker 2: we are going to roll out as show as my
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  Speaker 2: long term commitment to this, to fiscal sanity and fiscal prudence,
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  Speaker 2: we are going to roll out every single county, sixty
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  Speaker 2: seven counties in the top twenty five cities in the
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  Speaker 2: state of art and population, and we are going to
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  Speaker 2: expose all of the waste full spending numbers at once
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  Speaker 2: for them. Not only are we going to compare their
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  Speaker 2: spending to inflation and population. We're going to compare them
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  Speaker 2: to each other. So when one city or county says, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: but we have Tallahassee makes us do this, or we
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  Speaker 2: have this, well so do other counties? How can other
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  Speaker 2: counties or city be fiscally responsible and you not. So
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  Speaker 2: we're going to pull the We're going to pull the
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  Speaker 2: curtains back on a lot of the spending in September,
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  Speaker 2: So just stay tuned.
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  Speaker 1: Do the cities and counties know this is coming, because
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  Speaker 1: I love it.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure they do, because we've been asking for a
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  Speaker 2: lot of their information. And I will say this is
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  Speaker 2: that generally the counties are much much worse than the cities,
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  Speaker 2: which is sort of like the opposite of what you
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: would think cities spending would be worse. But on average
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  Speaker 2: cities actually do a little bit better than the counties.
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  Speaker 1: I'll bet you you find the opposite here, but we'll
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: wait and see. I would pay money to be in
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: the room when you send an email out saying hey, friends,
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  Speaker 1: this stuff is coming in September, just letting you know, Blaze,
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  Speaker 1: thanks for the time this morning. You're welcome anytime you
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  Speaker 1: got it.
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  Speaker 2: Take care of guys.
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  Speaker 1: Blazing Goliah State CFO. Did you hear that? A taxpayer
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  Speaker 1: bill of rights? Oh, come on, let's get some of that.
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  Speaker 1: See what that does. That's the constitutional amendment that has
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  Speaker 1: the most f to it because it limits cities and counties.
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  Speaker 1: They just can't do it. They're not allowed. They can't
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  Speaker 1: just indiscriminately keep raising. This has to include the schools though.
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  Speaker 1: That's we got to get to the schools. We got
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  Speaker 1: a lasso win the school districts. Forty eight minutes past
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the hour in the Morning Show with Preston Scott,