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Will Property Taxes In Florida End? What About School District's Insatiable Appetite For Money? · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Good morning friends, welcome. We are at the halfway mark
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: of the Morning Show with Preston scottis Wednesday Show fifty
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  Speaker 1: five ninety seven. He's Jose, I'm Preston. This is State
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  Speaker 1: Chief Financial Officer Blaze, Golia Blaze. Good morning, welcome back
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: to the program.
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  Speaker 2: How are you, sir, Good morning, Great to be here.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
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  Speaker 1: Tell me kind of where we are. The last time
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  Speaker 1: we visited, we were talking about what you'd learned going
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: across the state of Florida, talking with cities and counties
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  Speaker 1: looking at their books. What are your recommendations going to
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  Speaker 1: be to the governor, to the legislatures. It relates to
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the property tax based on what you've learned, So.
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  Speaker 2: Two part questionnaire. The first part is I would say
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  Speaker 2: that we are seeing this across almost every government. If
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  Speaker 2: you compare to twenty twenty budgets to twenty twenty six budget,
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  Speaker 2: the budgets have grown and property taxes have grown way
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  Speaker 2: past inflation and what population would demand. They're taking all
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  Speaker 2: the extra money, blowing it, seeing it, excessively, spending it,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: and expanding government and making it harder to cut. Because
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  Speaker 2: they're increasing government, they're adding new government employees. My suggestion
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  Speaker 2: to the governor and to the legislator legislature isn't necessarily
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  Speaker 2: specific a though I still believe that there is enough
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  Speaker 2: room there to eliminate property taxes on home seader properties
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  Speaker 2: all together. I think the numbers worked, especially if you
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  Speaker 2: phase it in over a couple of years. But what
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  Speaker 2: the legislature has to do is they have to put
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  Speaker 2: the most aggressive property tax cut on the ballot that's
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  Speaker 2: still that still takes care of our first responders and
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  Speaker 2: is able to get sixty percent passage because it's a
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  Speaker 2: higher bar, as you know, for a constitutional amendment. But
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  Speaker 2: here's the deal. We keep on talking about affordability. It's
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  Speaker 2: almost become a talking point, it's almost become cliche, But
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  Speaker 2: very few people are actually drilling down and actually trying
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  Speaker 2: to deliver on affordability here in the state of Florida.
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  Speaker 2: And the easiest way to do that is is to
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  Speaker 2: reduce people's housings payments housing payments. The easiest way to
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  Speaker 2: do that is to reduce people's property taxes.
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  Speaker 1: One of the things that I've observed when discussions like
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  Speaker 1: this happen in communities, whether they're run by Democrats or
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  Speaker 1: Republicans is oftentimes blaze. Elected leaders use the projects, the
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  Speaker 1: programs that you're talking about. They'll use access to parks,
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  Speaker 1: they'll use law enforcement and first responders as their scare
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  Speaker 1: tactic to get people afraid. How do you counter that.
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  Speaker 2: By telling them the truth, telling them that you know,
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  Speaker 2: when you run an exercise of how much money the
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  Speaker 2: government should have spent and how much they actually spent,
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  Speaker 2: it becomes very clear. So by our calculations, when you
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  Speaker 2: are taking a budget in twenty twenty and you increase
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  Speaker 2: it every year organically to find out what the budget
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  Speaker 2: should normally be, you're increasing it by inflation, so you're
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  Speaker 2: counting the extra cost of things. When you're increasing by
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  Speaker 2: population growth, you're accounting for the extra people. You're accounting
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  Speaker 2: for new first responders, for keeping the programs that you
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  Speaker 2: actually had. But when you show them that if you
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  Speaker 2: wouldn't have spent all this extra money, that you could
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  Speaker 2: have still had those programs, given raises, hired more people,
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  Speaker 2: that's when people start getting angry. And that's what we're showing.
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  Speaker 2: And that's quite frankly why I'm getting huge pushback from governments. Now.
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  Speaker 2: The taxpayers love me. The taxpayers are saying, thank god,
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  Speaker 2: somebody is saying what we're not able to say. But
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  Speaker 2: the elected officials, whether they're Democratic, is a Republican and
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  Speaker 2: especially the government bureaucracts. They don't like me because I'm
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  Speaker 2: shining a light on what they're actually doing well.
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  Speaker 1: And you know that if this becomes a constitutional amendment,
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  Speaker 1: you'll probably have this the strange bedfellows of Republican and
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  Speaker 1: Democrat community leaders in counties and cities joining together to
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  Speaker 1: promote and try to kill the thing. Who's on the
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  Speaker 1: other side, who's going to be promoting the passage of
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  Speaker 1: something like that.
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  Speaker 2: So I think the governor and I will be leading
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  Speaker 2: the charge on this as long as it is, you know,
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  Speaker 2: very aggressive and it actual offers substantial relief. And you'll
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  Speaker 2: have some third party groups out there like AFP, like AMI,
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  Speaker 2: like Florida tax Botch taxpayer advocates. But here's the thing,
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  Speaker 2: and you made a very good point, they are going
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  Speaker 2: to push back. What government is going to do is
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  Speaker 2: government is going to run a pr campaign as political
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  Speaker 2: campaign against the taxpayers who are actually funding the government.
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  Speaker 2: And this is how in city it is insitious. It
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  Speaker 2: is you know, a portion of your tax dollars that
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  Speaker 2: you personally are are paying. Presdent is going to into
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  Speaker 2: the pot of money at government, and they are turning
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  Speaker 2: around and giving it to media companies, to lobbyists, and
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  Speaker 2: they are lobbying against you, the person who's funding government
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  Speaker 2: in the first place.
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  Speaker 1: Blaise, the last time you were on the program, I
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  Speaker 1: mentioned the possibility of school districts being in your purview
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  Speaker 1: because they accept state money. First, have you decided whether
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  Speaker 1: you're going to have a deeper look at the books,
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  Speaker 1: and maybe you've already done that, But Leon, the county
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  Speaker 1: school board is advocating actually raising the millage one mill
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  Speaker 1: despite having more money every year due to property valuations,
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  Speaker 1: and they have hired too many administrators, they're losing population,
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  Speaker 1: they refuse to close schools. What if anything, can a
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  Speaker 1: cfo's office do on things like this.
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  Speaker 2: We can call bs on them, and this is what
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  Speaker 2: we're doing. So to answer your first question, we have
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  Speaker 2: already asked some school districts before data we are actually
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  Speaker 2: we've retrieved some of the information. We're crunching some of
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  Speaker 2: the numbers. But our assertion is correct is that the
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  Speaker 2: growth in the budgets on the administrative level is growing
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  Speaker 2: much much, much faster than what we're seeing in terms
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  Speaker 2: of the money that's actually going into the classroom. So
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  Speaker 2: we have the same dynamic that we have with local governments.
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  Speaker 2: They're just taking the extra money and spending it, which
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  Speaker 2: is a little bit but it's a little bit different
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  Speaker 2: because the general government serves general tax the school district
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  Speaker 2: serves students. But what's happening in this dynamic, and it
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  Speaker 2: just blows my mind that, you know, we have universal
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  Speaker 2: school choice in the state of Florida, So you have
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  Speaker 2: these students that are not going to traditional public schools
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  Speaker 2: right and going to charter schools, private schools. But what
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  Speaker 2: most people don't know is that a portion, about a
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  Speaker 2: tenth of the funding that is supposed to go to
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  Speaker 2: the student actually stays in the district. So if you have,
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  Speaker 2: just for argument's sake, if you have ten thousand dollars
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  Speaker 2: universal school choice, you know, and you go to a
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  Speaker 2: charter school, nine thousand goes to the charter school, and
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  Speaker 2: one thousand stays with the district. So you have this
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  Speaker 2: dynamic where districts actually have decreasing populations, but they have
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  Speaker 2: more money than they should have because they're still getting
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  Speaker 2: a cut of the pie, if you will. And these
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  Speaker 2: budgets are just so you the budget. They've never gotten
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  Speaker 2: around to actually right sizing the district and right sizing
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  Speaker 2: the school. They just kept all the overhead, but they
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  Speaker 2: but they lost a lot of the money. And it's
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  Speaker 2: amazing to me that they are actually going to put
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  Speaker 2: a tax raise question on the ballot alongside a tax
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  Speaker 2: cut question on the ballot in via constitutional amendment. How
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  Speaker 2: is that going to work? These people are actually tone desk.
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  Speaker 2: I'm very happy that at least two school board members
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  Speaker 2: are raising objections in Leon County and questioning what the
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  Speaker 2: h the administration is doing looking to raise taxes instead
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  Speaker 2: of of cutting costs.
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  Speaker 1: Well, it's I'm just I'm wondering, where is the fiduciary
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  Speaker 1: oversight in all of this? If they come.
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  Speaker 2: On, don't make me laugh this early in the morning.
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  Speaker 2: There's no fiduciary oversight in governments. Well I know that,
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  Speaker 2: but you early for belly last.
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  Speaker 1: But that's what you're bringing to the table, Blaze, You're
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  Speaker 1: you're you're forcing people to look deeper and sadly, what
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  Speaker 1: what people that are that are paying attention here and
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  Speaker 1: Leon County are concerned about is they've lost twelve to
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  Speaker 1: fourteen percent of the student population, but they've increased the
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  Speaker 1: number of administrators on a district level, and the math,
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  Speaker 1: they're just saying, Yeah, we know we've lost all these students, ergo,
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  Speaker 1: all the money goes with them except that ten percent,
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  Speaker 1: But we're just going to make up for it by
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  Speaker 1: paying for it with more property taxes and people will
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  Speaker 1: go along with that.
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  Speaker 2: Isn't math a wonderful thing? You know? The last time
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  Speaker 2: I checked, the people on the other side of the
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  Speaker 2: aisle said that we have to believe in the science.
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  Speaker 2: Math is a form of science. But they don't believe
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  Speaker 2: math for some reason. But you're one hundred percent right.
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  Speaker 1: So is there anything that the state can do to
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  Speaker 1: prevent them from even putting the tax increase on the ballot.
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  Speaker 2: When we don't Unfortunately, they have the legislative authority to
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  Speaker 2: do that. But you know it's I don't see how
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  Speaker 2: something like that is going to pass when the tax
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  Speaker 2: cut is on the ballot. So let me ask you
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  Speaker 2: this guy, just a rhetorical question. Yeah, if we had
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  Speaker 2: a question on the ballot to eliminate property taxes on
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  Speaker 2: home set of properties altogether, which means that they could
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  Speaker 2: not go to the voters and ask for additional millage.
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  Speaker 2: How would that actually work. You're going to reduce, so
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  Speaker 2: you're going to eliminate property taxes, but then add property taxes.
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  Speaker 2: You can't do that because the constitution woul say that
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  Speaker 2: you couldn't.
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  Speaker 1: It'll be interesting. I can only predict how they're going
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  Speaker 1: to package it here in Leon County for the school
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  Speaker 1: district Blaze, and what they're going to say is this
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  Speaker 1: is for the teachers. And because they've been poor at
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  Speaker 1: using the money of the state allocated for teachers, they've
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  Speaker 1: not gotten it to the teachers. They're going to get
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  Speaker 1: the taxpayers to pay for their mismanagement.
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  Speaker 2: Here's a dirty, little secret present. And this is what
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  Speaker 2: the school districts across the state of Florida and quite
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  Speaker 2: frankly across the United States don't want regular taxpayers to
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  Speaker 2: know that there is enough money in their budget to
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  Speaker 2: actually cut costs and cut taxpayers, deliver a w old
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  Speaker 2: class education, and at the same time give teachers raises.
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  Speaker 2: The teachers should not be angry and frustrated the taxpayers
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  Speaker 2: and its state government and the governor and me. What
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  Speaker 2: they should be angry at is the administration because the
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  Speaker 2: governor is one hundred percent right. We've given the money
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  Speaker 2: to the districts and for years they haven't been giving
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  Speaker 2: it to the teachers. Then we change the law and
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  Speaker 2: say hey, when we give out bonuses, when we give
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  Speaker 2: out raises, it goes directly to the teachers. That actually
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  Speaker 2: circumvents the union, circumvents the administration. They still find ways
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  Speaker 2: to play games with it. This is a political game
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  Speaker 2: that they play to try to give the impression, the
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  Speaker 2: appearance that they don't have enough money to pay the teachers,
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  Speaker 2: and the teachers should be angry at the administration, not us.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, sadly the local union is siding with the district
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  Speaker 1: and demanding the property tax increase. But that'll be a fight.
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  Speaker 1: We'll keep fighting the best we can. Blaze, thanks for
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  Speaker 1: the time this morning. I appreciate it very much, anytime.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Blazing Golia State CFO, Florida, our guest on The Morning
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Show with Preston Scuty