The Flagler County Commission is directing its administration to issue a rebuttal to Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia’s claim that the county government “wasted” $59 million in a five-year period. The commission agreed to do so on Monday after Commissioner Kim Carney characterized Ingoglia’s claims as “crazy stuff” using Flagler County as his “campaign crutch.”
The appointed CFO is running to be the elected CFO. For months, he has held campaign-like events made to look like press conferences around the state to seemingly expose what he alleges to be wasteful spending by county or city governments. He held one such event at the Club at Hammock Beach on March 26, peddling the $59 million claim but with nothing more than a formula to derive the figure.
He did not define waste. He did not refer to specific programs he considers wasteful. He did not explain the $59 million figure–derived from the same formula he applies across the state–which county officials and others quickly determined to be misleading. He has since reused the same claim from time to time on his campaign platforms.
“The CFO craziness popped up again, so I understand it’s all got to do with his campaign,” Carney said at Monday’s commission meeting. “Everything he’s putting out about Flagler County’s waste and all that crazy stuff is coming out of his campaign website or Facebook.” The county attorney’s office issued a three-page request for information on May 19 from the CFO’s office to understand how Ingoglia derived his figures. The documents the county is requesting include records Ingoglia received or sent as he reviewed Flagler County’s budget, all records generated by the CFO’s office’s analysis, email communications, texts, phone logs and other records.
There has been no answer. Ingoglia in his appearance at the Hammock club challenged local officials and others to engage with his office about his numbers.
“Do we have a deadline on that? Is there a deadline, because it’s a $500 a day fine if you don’t respond to a Freedom of Information Act,” Carney said. (The penalty for an unintentional violation of the state’s public record law is $500, but not per day, and $1,000 if the violation is intentional. The maximum penalty, a misdemeanor, also could include up to a year in jail.)
“Can we stay on top of that?” she continued. “In the meantime, do we have some type of a rebuttal? I don’t want to use the word rebuttal. That’s too strong. An informational piece on where the county stands on that.” She cautioned: “It’s not going to go away before the election. He’s going to pound on this and try to get credit on this up through the election, so does the board want more information? Do we want more data?”
Commissioner Andy Dance said the commission itself has to be clearer on directing the administration than it has been since March. “Now is the time to kind of coalesce around a response, and what you want included,” he said. “I think the major accusations from the original press release should be addressed, because the rest of it is just vague from that point on. It’s just generalizations. But there were specific accusations regarding excessive personnel, and different things that can be rebutted, and I think it’s important.”
On March 26, Ingoglia issued a “press release” through his office repeating the $59 million claim as “excessive, wasteful spending” and the accusation that Flagler County “has the highest budget increase among the past fifteen local governments that have been reviewed by the Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight (FAFO) with a 119.2% increase.” He said, accurately, that the general fund budget increased $110 million between 2020 and 2026, and that the county added the equivalent of 80 full-time employees “to accommodate a 32,564 increase in population growth.”
Ingoglia did not note that the largest increases took place in public safety–the Sheriff’s Office, the Fire Department, Emergency Management–nor mentioned the very large increase in the county’s reserves, which had been very low in 2019, and some debt payments in the past five years.
“We didn’t spend your money, we have your money in reserves, so we paid off bad debt that the board had for many years ago,” Commission Chair Leann Pennington said, which helped the county improve its bond rating and lower its interest payments.
“I lived through that from when I came on the board in 2017, and it was bad. It was bad,” Commissioner Greg Hansen said. “We’ve recovered.”
“We just met with the external audit the other day,” Pennington said. “Our reserves are perfect. We are right on track.” The standard for local governments is to have reserves equivalent to two months of operational costs. The county has two months. It is working toward three.
“We’re working on a webpage that will likely be somewhere around the transparency dashboard page that we have now,” Acting County Administrator Adam Mengel said, “and it will review basically off of the faithful audit, and hit all the points that are mentioned in there.” Mengel said the new web page will address the main points of the Ingoglia claims from the March event. “I know the message has changed over the time since then, that there’s been some confusion at best from the CFO’s office,” Mengel said.
Carney had attended the March event, as had numerous local elected officials. “I’m not going to let it go, because it’s definitely being used as a campaign crutch, and I don’t like it,” Carney said. “He’s doing it strategically all over the state. So last week he visited Fort Lauderdale. He’s already been to Orlando. So this is a strategy, and I don’t know why we got picked, but we did… for him to continue to do that on his campaign website is just–we’ve got to do something.”
Merrill Shapiro says
Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia is working hard to distract from the $270+million that has been “lost” in the Florida school voucher programs. That’s $270+million lost on his watch. That’s in one year! And it will very likely happen again next year thanks to “II” also known as Ingoglia Incompetence.
Koyote says
Rather than worrying about alleged ‘waste’, how about doing something about the governmental theft?
From December , 2025 …
“Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration diverted more than $35 million in taxpayer funds — an amount far greater than previously known — as part of a brazen agenda last year to defeat two ballot amendments he staunchly opposed, a Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times investigation has found.”
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article313630394.html#storylink=cpy
Skibum says
… and he laughed all the way to his wife’s charity, where the bulk of that taxpayer money was funneled to without any authorization from the legislature. Many millions more were wasted, more appropriately should be called what it is – fraud – when he took taxpayer funds out of the state treasury and blew it on lord knows how many bus and plane trips taking immigrants from cities in Texas, NOT Florida, and sending them to NY, LA and other major cities around the country while sitting in Tallahassee with his maga GOP buddies laughing at having pulled off such a charade at your and my expense.
I believe the real reason his fat bellied CFO made the rounds through this state with that nonsense was because he was sent to distract from all of the ongoing fraud and corruption claims that were being directed at the governor’s office and legislature. “Look there, not at us.”
Ray W. says
Political dishonesty has long been coin of the realm. Lie laundering by the pestilential among us, too, has long carried with it a certain value. James Madison, considered by many of his peers the best educated of the day, understood the dangers of the poison spread by those who put faction before country.
Deborah Coffey says
The motive for the lie came from Ron DeSantis because he wants to do away with property taxes to benefit all of his rich friends and donors. Ron DeSantis will NEVER tax the rich…no matter what he lyingly says.
Tutter says
They are requesting the texts between him and Joe Mullins too and Jearlyn – this should be interesting. I was onboard with him until I saw Ed Danko, Joe Mullins and Jearln Dennie there.
What’s next on the agenda ? says
Commissioner Carney might want to direct some of her outrage toward the uncovered waste, questionable accounting practices, and reportedly “missing” county assets that were discussed during the last commission meeting.
The Flagler County Commission needs to take a serious look at fraud, waste, inaccurate asset tracking, and the perception of favoritism in hiring friends and family members. Before launching crusades elsewhere, commissioners should make sure their own house is in order.
Taxpayers deserve accountability, transparency, and confidence that public resources are being properly managed. Addressing concerns within county government should be a priority before focusing attention on outside issues.
Koyote says
@What’s next on the agenda ? says
“Addressing concerns within county government should be a priority before focusing attention on outside issues.”
Normally, I would agree with you, but when those ‘Outside issues’ want to stick their unfounded claims and accusations into the mix, they must be removed from the equations, first, so as to not occlude the actual issues.
In this case in particular …
Unfounded and unsubstantiated claims only to further the interests of his own campaign and his nose in/up DeSantis.. well, you know. And, coming from a State Level, they automatically carry some (not much, anymore) weight of authority – even without proof (the new standard in accusing … don’t worry about proof .. just yell louder).
And finally, the County didn’t ‘focus attention’ on this idiot … HE came to the county with his supposed authority and accusations.
I don’t go around slapping people in the face, but when someone slaps me, I will react.
Sonny says
How about we start with the SECRET BUDGET of this county’s sheriff!
We aren’t to know how much or where he spends OUR MONEY! TajMahal building, toys & toy shed, budget for repairs & pilot years
before 2 million a year helicopter from his mouth! I WANT ACCOUNTABILITY!
TRANSPARENCY!!!
Marc C says
Thank you! It isn’t going to take much to shut this guy down, but someone has to actually stand up. Up to this point, local officials around the state have been willingly taking their lashings. We are living in our own “Red Scare” these days. Whether it is “woke” or “wasteful spending”, the red political party has lost every single principle they once stood for. They are now all about power and nothing more.
Sherry says
Just a reminder from AI:
While systemic political corruption remains highly contested, the county and its local institutions have been victims of targeted financial fraud:
School District Cyber Heist: The Flagler County School District fell victim to a massive email phishing scam, resulting in a $719,000 loss meant for the Matanzas High School expansion project. The money was transferred via an electronic ACH to a fraudulent vendor account. The FBI and the local sheriff’s office launched an investigation, noting that recovering such funds in international digital scams is highly difficult.
Tax Office Embezzlement: In a distinct local case, Deborah Thomas, an ambulance collections manager for the Flagler County Tax Collector, was arrested and charged with a multi-year embezzlement scheme where she skimmed over $20,000 in cash payments directly from customers.
Business-Level Schemes: The local sheriff’s office also investigated cases of financial fraud in the private sector, notably probing the owner of Flagler Tax Service for grand theft and embezzling’s client funds.While the county has occasionally faced internal embezzlement and fallen prey to external cyber scams, the core of current financial controversy lies in intense, polarized debates over budget growth and local tax burdens rather than traditional political corruption. To review county spending or track current financial reporting, residents can view the Flagler County BOCC Transparency Dashboard. If you or a local business have been a victim of a scam, you can report the incident through the Florida CFO Safe Fraud and Scam Reporting Portal.