HomeLocal governmentJLAC votes to conduct follow-up audit of City of Gainesville after expressing disappointment in “bold actions”

JLAC votes to conduct follow-up audit of City of Gainesville after expressing disappointment in “bold actions”

October 16, 2023

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – At today’s Joint Legislative Audit Committee meeting, the committee voted to ask the State Auditor General to perform a follow-up audit of the City of Gainesville, including investigating why a bond issuance was delayed, costing ratepayers $2.9 million. The motion also instructed the Auditor General to investigate whether there were any violations of Sunshine Laws in that decision.

After a presentation of the updated status of the audit, Chair Mike Caruso (R-Boca Raton) told Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward, “I’ll be honest with you – I’m disappointed in the ‘bold actions'” taken by the City in setting their budget for FY2024.

Senator Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary) pointed out that despite the budget cuts described by Ward, “taxes still went drastically up.”

Ward responded, “Members of your committee admonished us to raise our property taxes… We did as we were instructed, sir.”

Caruso said he didn’t see “any major cuts in the budget at all.”

There was some discussion about which member of the committee had told the City to raise property taxes, and nobody at the meeting was able to answer the question, but it was Sen. Brodeur who said the City needed to “look at raising taxes” at the February 2023 JLAC meeting.

Rep. Peggy Gossett-Seidman (R-Palm Beach) made the motion to perform a follow-up audit, and the motion passed along party lines, 6-4.

Our full article on the meeting can be found here.

  • This is going to end with them pushing to dissolve the City of Gainesville.

      • Probably not. Lenders don’t like that sort of thing and the City is in way too deep with GRU’s debt load.

        More likely the Governor will be appointing a few new commissioners. Especially since Mayor Ward delayed a bond issuance for political gain, costing the City $2.9 million and blatantly violating FL Sunshine Law in the process.

        • That’s exactly where I think this is going. The question is how many of the Dias (if any) participated in this scheme?

          Also, IF criminal charges were filed, what court would they be in? Alachua or Leon County? If Gainesville is a subsection of the state it seems like it would be Tally.

        • “Chair Mike Caruso (R-Boca Raton) told Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward, “I’ll be honest with you – I’m disappointed in the ‘bold actions’” taken by the City in setting their budget for FY2024.”
          If I were the mayor, I would be so embarrassed by this statement. But I have a conscience and their lies the problem with our mayor.

    • LOL! Right as rain. Need an actual unconflicted team of state investigators to investigate the lies and schemes that are against the law! Crimes!!!

  • It sure looked like Mr Ward was caught with his pants down! He was horrible and didn’t do well for the city or himself! He should resign tonight, as he’ll be investigated for his sunshine law violations and could be charged with a crime! Likely too! The Reichert House sympathy approach didn’t hold either with several members not believing those gov employees couldn’t get the books open. Mr Grundy correctly described the “Shell Game” with the city and RH. It’s funny the state audit found the same issue presented in the 2019 city audit of RH! City leadership is in shambles wasting tens of thousands every week. The huge max property tax increase didn’t go over well either or the scheme with Hinson to sue the city. Great! Mr Konish spoke well too, concerns most of us have had since Braddy left. They’ve finally crashed and burned. Resign tonight Ward!

    • Remember the city auditor (a charter officer) was fired by the city commission because they didn’t like his findings. This goes way up, I would not be surprised if it involved a former chief of police.

      • Never said he was my “hero” but much better at city management than Poe and Ward put together. I can’t comment on others because I wasn’t there before Braddy. I know in Braddy years they were very reluctant to raise property taxes or GRU rates despite being the first administration to be saddled with the huge GREG invoices every month.

  • After watching most of the questioning, I swear it appeared as if Ward’s ass was tightening up during the hearing.

    The City’s representatives didn’t appear to be well prepared. GRU “CEO” didn’t mean to implicate Ward but he did. Pretty sure they’ll be having an “out of the sunshine” conversation soon. Must say, it was nice to watch. Once again, the City Manager demonstrated her incompetence by not having at least a small degree of knowledge of the expenditures. They seemed to go out of their way to mention they haven’t cut public safety but at the same time they failed to mention the “proposed” raises they voted to give themselves. The State Reps obviously have some degree of knowledge of the fiscal malfeasance that exists within City Hall, they just need to find the evidence.

    Reichert House seems to be a pretty good direction since it was mentioned a couple times by both entities. Harvey appeared to emphatically state the City was no longer involved with Reichert House. (Maybe he’s hoping they don’t look there?) It was also somewhat covertly mentioned how much the City apparently depends on GRU to fund their pet projects and although those Democrat Reps don’t want to admit it, further audits are needed.

    Dear Harvey, pucker up…

    • The “proposed” increase of their salaries, (in case anyone forgot, 2X). Guess the State wouldn’t have liked those numbers.

    • Hope they keep digging. Of course the CM couldn’t answer anything. She is incompetent except when it comes to doing sketchy stuff. I will have a party when that clown packs her bags and leaves! The state needs to turn up the heat! Keep digging. All things done in the dark will come to the light! It is about damn time!!

  • Ward repeatedly denied that he would ever instruct anyone to do anything. Yet, the GM clearly stated in his memorandum that on March 2023 GRU was directed by the mayor to hold the request for approval for the debt issuance until after May 5th, costing GRU an additional $2.9 Million. The best part is while Cunningham was tripping over his own tongue, he admitted that their private meetings with City Commissioners are used to daisy chain and to avoid bring items to the regular City Commission meetings. Oops.

    • Thanks for mentioning the Ward to Cunningham conversation. I hate forgetting things…guess Harvey does as well.

  • The mayor appears to have somehow graduated without any math skills and common sense. A major in BS only goes so far. What a sad sack of Leadership from all these Commissioners Gainesville elected. Buckle Up, new governance is on it and sees right thru this bunch.

  • Isn’t that just like a bunch of Democrats, (or Trump), to not want their finances audited.
    Maybe they have more in common than they want to admit.

  • Two thoughts:

    The finance lady from the city couldn’t answer basic questions under her umbrella. The city manager had to step in to save her embarrassment.

    Second, if daisy chaining sunshine violations occurred AND can be proven, DeSantis is going to remove all the violators.

    • I think they were hoping for some stereotypical brainpower from her. The bleach-blonde hair probably should have been a clue. Hopefully her 50% police and fire estimate wasn’t too far off.

      • I mean she couldn’t answer anything!!

        I couldn’t believe they were stupid enough to out her up there.

    • I can prove they didn’t comply with the law on my public records request. I hope the City gets found out. Go ahead DeSantis!!!

  • Of course Ward would have ONLY heard “raise taxes” during the hours of previous JLAC meetings. DeSantis needs to clean the slate here and start over, soon.

    • Yeah, they told Mayor Wimpy to cut the budget by at least 25% and said he would probably have to raise taxes on top of that. He conveniently ignored the “cut the budget by 25%” part.

    • Thats your answer? MORE BIG GOVERNMENT? I thought you guys were against BIG GOVERNMENT??!!!

  • And while you’re at it, take another hard look at the Reichert House. See where ALL that local & federal money went. Too much flowed to that money pit that hasn’t been accounted for.

  • IF ANYONE WAS EXPECTING ANYTHING LESS THAN A NEGATIVE AND UNCOMFORTABLE INTERACTION FROM THIS BOARD YOU ARE STILL DELUDED! GAINESVILLE HAS A TARGET ON ITS BACK PLACED THERE BY THE GOVERNOR FROM THE DAY HE TOOK OFFICE. I STATED THIS THEN. I WAS LABLED AS MR. NEGATIVE BECAUSE MY GUY LOST. IS IT CLEAR NOW!!!???????

    • B. There’s deluded and there’s delusional. You just happen to be of the latter but many Gainesville residents have been deluded by the City Commission and Mayor.
      The City may have a target on it’s back but local leadership put it there. The unfortunate aspect is that when you shoot a target with a scattergun, others may be caught in the pellets. The State alluded to that during the hearing when they inquired as to the raising taxes and utility rates and as others have mentioned, missing the bond issuance that will end up costing millions.

    • The shallow minds and politics running GRU into a financial disaster is the City Of Gainesville’s Commissions and Mayors past and present doing. They have made history in the worse way possible. There is nothing negative for the GRU Customers about new competent ,business minded governance. It was the only option as the City Leaders and their sheeple are incompetent. This is one last shot at trying to save GRU. Gainesville can reap what it has sown.

  • I have spent the last few months pointing out that the City did not do ANY major cuts. In actuality, with all the salary increases, they actually increased the budgets. You cannot freeze vacant positions, raise citizens taxes and tell everyone you miraculously balanced the budget with major cuts. GTFOH. They need to hire a City Manager that has experience in crisis management. Not a puppet that doesn’t know math and thinks she can fool us like she fools the commission with her lack of knowledge and experience. I am so happy to hear that JLAC is pointing out what many of been screaming. They need to do real cuts starting at the top to show they are taking this situation seriously. You are not going to balance a budget by laying off a few low paying workers and getting rid of already vacant positions. The gaslighting is so comical at this point.

    • Well said. The citizens of Gainesville are seriously suffering under the corruption and incompetence of our local government. It has grown out of hand and barely even pretends to serve the people any more.

      The size of the GNV city government is far too large and bloated, there are too many commissioners and charter officers, there are completely useless / redundant departments like DEI, and there is a constant cycle of incompetence that goes like this:

      – Come up with ill-conceived idea so you can impress liberals in California
      – Be advised that idea is ill-conceived by city staff
      – Pay 2-3 consulting firms to tell you idea is ill-conceived
      – Proceed with idea anyway
      – Realize idea was ill-conceived
      – Try to break contract / cancel project
      – Pay millions of taxpayer dollars in penalties
      – Repeat, without learning anything, ever

      Hopefully there will be some criminal penalties for Ward and his cronies as a result of this second audit.

    • I wonder how old man Ward likes orange outfits and/or stripes? He could be greased down by other inmates!

  • The impetus for the $37,000 pay raise for the DEI position is that’s what Ward promised to pay the person as part of his regime-building nonsense. There is nothing particularly exquisite or complicated about that job that justifies paying an unqualified person to do it. The previous director had more experience and was paid less. It’s just utter nonsense to pay charters more than the value of a position ($299 for Curry?) while you eliminate lower paid positions, and tax homeowners beyond their fair share. I hope they’re all removed.

    • The DEI Director is not qualified. They screwed over Sylvia Warren for this doofus. Fire him, Curry, Ramos and the climate change officer. They need a new attorney too. Clean house!!

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