The  Sting !  

        The below email is a detailed exposé of what probably, and intentionally took place in the City of Winter Springs.   PFGG has been following the "fire TAX" issue from it's beginning, and nowhere have we found a different course of possible remedies to offset the new property tax actions than what was first presented by city manager McLemore from his first presentation to the city commission.   This issue actually started around the latter part of September 2007.

            The outline below is what other cities sought, and it is inconceivable that the city of Winter Springs was so narrow minded that they did not have the same opportunities.   Read the email below, and come to your OWN conclusions.   Is the emailer correct?   Sends us your thoughts.

City Manager Ron McLemore seems to be throwing GSC (city's consultant for fire service fee) under the fire truck.   McLemore has told the city commission that GSC called him on Friday, February 8th to inform him that it
has "NEW" information of a fire fee assessment method that the cities of Lake Mary and Casselberry are looking into (square footage/tiered assessment versus flat residential rate).   GSC is consulting for those cities too.   The information GSC now has for Winter Springs is based on what GSC is analyzing for those two other municipal governments.

Now, most of us know that when you hire a consultant in the municipal government world, the municipal government really knows the result it wants.   It just wants to know how to go about getting the results.   So, the city manager (in this case Ron McLemore) would initially meet with the consultant firm (in this case GSC) before it performs its study to give GSC some indication what the city is looking to do (establish a fire fee), and what the end result needs to be (generate X,XXX,XXX amount of revenue annually. and minimize the city's administration costs).

Seriously, who would think that GSC just ran off on its own to compile a report without getting some kind of direction from city hall first?    Based on what the consultant heard from the city manager as to what it wanted to
do, GSC probably laid out various methods of assessment (options a, b, or c) from which the city manager could determine met the city's objectives of revenue generation and minimizing administration costs annually.

If GSC did not get any direction from the city manager prior to performing its analysis, then the report GSC presented to the commission on January 7, 2008 would have provided all options for assessing fees for revenue generation that GSC is aware of presently.    And, we all know now that GSC is aware of more than one way of skinning taxpayers based on its work with Lake Mary and Casselberry.    The question now is, did McLemore present all the options to the city commission when this all first started back in the fall 2007?   Did he mislead the city commission to believe that there was only one option for GSC to study?

Given the various options GSC may have presented to McLemore, in relation to Winter Springs tax base (90% residential and 10% commercial), McLemore probably told GSC to base its study off the flat fee option because it would generate the revenue he needed and it would not cost much on the city's part to administrate the assessment district.   What would McLemore care about how it affected any one taxpayer, if it met his two main objectives?  

We know he doesn't care about costs to taxpayers because he never presented any facts to the commission on the affects of the assessment on taxpayers before its vote on January 14th.   McLemore or his finance staff did not crunch any numbers using GSC's two flat rate fees of $256 and $216  to see that any tax relief from Amendment 1 would be wiped out by the fire service fee.   It took a private citizen to show the city commission the affects.

Obviously, the management of those two other cities took a different path before unleashing GSC to perform individual studies on how the revenue generation method would affect its commercial and residential tax bases while still meeting its objectives.   And, we really do not know what the objectives of those two cities are.   Clearly, the management of Lake Mary and Casselberry is better in tune with the range of its tax bases, than Ron McLemore is with his, as to not even consider a residential flat fee option for GSC to go off to study.

It appears, by the late maneuvering by McLemore on Friday, February 8th, that McLemore was once again trying to save face by pulling the public hearing from the February 11th agenda and offering up his scapegoat, which seems to be GSC.   Regardless whether or not GSC was forthright in its analysis and report by not providing all options, city taxpayers should campaign the commission heavily that any costs associated with GSC's consultant fee (estimated at $81,000 and growing) be pulled from the 2008/2009 miscellaneous expense side of the fire service fee assessment budget.   The consultant fee is a cost of doing business that benefits the whole city in finding ways to generate revenue and minimize costs.   The GSC consultant fee does not derive a special benefit to any one taxpayer's real property for fire service.

So, the numbers based on the NEW information GSC and city are supposed to present on March 10th is based on a square footage/tiered system of assessing properties.   This method is different from the initial method for calculating the fee for residential properties but it is not much different from what GSC initially proposed for Winter Springs' commercial properties.   Commercial and residential taxpayers should push very strongly that the commission be allowed to see these NEW numbers well before it votes at the public hearing on March 10th.  

To do otherwise is not allowing the city commission, or the public, the time to do their homework and crunch numbers before the vote.   McLemore has given us no confidence that he will perform any analysis because he never did it the first time.   Waiting until March 10th to reveal the calculation figures is keeping the commission and the public in the dark, which is exactly the way City Manager McLemore likes to operate.

Thankfully, through Citizen Ron Ligthart's perseverance and intelligence, and a capable and ready assist from Commissioner Joanne Krebs, Ligthart brought light and information to the commission on January 28th that revealed the unfairness of the residential fire service fee.   McLemore and his finance staff did nothing to apply the figure's presented in GSC's report to the tax base of Winter Springs.   And, the city commission almost voted on this fee based on the city manager's assurances that it was a wash for taxpayers.

If the city commission wants accountability, they should turn left on the dais and look right down to the seat of City Manager Ron McLemore.    It is time that he is held accountable for his lack of discernment, leadership, analysis of information, and poor delegation of responsibility to a staffer who was ill-qualified to handle the assignment.

Helga Schwarz
Winter Springs, FL
 

        So, if you came to the same conclusion from the letter above, and we at PFGG did with all our research on the variations of this "taxing " issue, then one MUST assume the writer above is correct.    There is NOTHING to even indicate anything else took place.    If GSC DID NOT have their options as presented to other cities submitted to city manager McLemore --- then they should be fired -- and prevented from being able to do business within the city of Winter Springs again !

        If it is proven that GSC came into town with but ONE option the above should apply, however, if it is proven that McLemore INTENTIONALLY presented only HIS option --- HE SHOULD BE FIRED IMMEDIATELY --- and the Citizens of Winter Springs should see that such action is taken !

        There are other ways to accomplish revenue savings without placing additional burdens upon the citizens of the city.   One is to eliminate the extremely HIGH cost of top-heavy management within the City of Winter Springs.   Businesses do it all the time --- it's call "trimming-at-the-top ", and there's TWO pieces of high priced topped jobs on that city DAIS !    They sit next to each other.

   Let's see if YOU and the COMMISSION can figure it out !  
Send us YOUR vote to -- PFGG.