Surprise debate erupts at Tiger Bay Club candidate forum

What was supposed to be a panel discussion between candidates for Sarasota County Tax Collector at a Sarasota Tiger Bay Club meeting morphed into a debate between Republican challenger Mike Moran and Chief Deputy Tax Collector Sherri Smith, a 39-year employee of the tax office.

Although the standing room-only crowd at Michael’s On East on Sept. 5 had gathered to witness a discussion of the issues between Moran, a current county commissioner who is term-limited, and incumbent Barbara Ford-Coates, a Democrat, a family emergency kept Ford-Coates from attending.

It was announced at the outset that Ford-Coates’ husband, Brian Ford-Coates, had been rushed to the hospital and was in intensive care, and as a result she was not able to attend.

The meeting started out briefly as a one-man forum moderated by Sarasota attorney Morgan Bentley. Smith took to the Q&A microphone after Moran accused her boss of overcharging for services even though those funds were returned to the county government.

The crowd was then treated to a sometimes bare knuckles debate between Moran and Smith.

Bentley invited Smith to be Ford-Coates’ surrogate, which she accepted.

“Since we're just in weird land today, Mike, are you going to object if Sherri would want to sit here at the table?” Bentley asked Moran, who did not object.

“This is turning out to be great!” Bentley added.

Moran’s consternation is rooted in the fact that the Tax Collector is a constitutional office and, as a result, its budget is set by the state. And rather than structuring fees to merely cover its cost, the department generates what he called revenue from fees it charges for ancillary services it provides such as driver’s license tests and renewals, vehicle registrations, hunting and fishing licenses, boat registrations, concealed weapons permits and more.

He said that during a recent county budget workshop, Ford-Coates’ boasted about “profits” generated by those activities, which isn’t exactly what she said about putting nearly $19 million into the county’s coffers.

“If this were the private sector,” she said at the budget workshop, “we would call it profit.”

Moran’s complaint is that the revenue generated is placed in the general fund and can’t be returned to those who paid it, and instead can only be returned to the overall tax base in the form of the millage rate.

Smith countered that fees for all registrations and licenses are set by the state. 

“When you renew your car registration, it goes by the weight of the vehicle,” Smith said. “That’s the fee. We don't set the fee. The same thing for a driver's license. The state sets the fee. We're able to retain $6.20 for a license. So when she says ‘profit,’ we collect those fees, we invest them, we run our budget with them, we pay our salaries and benefits; and what's left over Barbara returns to the county.”

Although the discussion occasionally meandered into tangents — accusations of Moran spending large on lavish trips as part of the Florida PACE Funding home repair financing group he heads, Ford-Coates allegedly paying an employee (not Smith) in excess of $400,000 per year, etc., and the subject of the office returning excess funds to the county, continued to arise.

One Tiger Bay Club member repeatedly pressed about how tax office “profits” were spent, a question that was never clearly answered other than that it was absorbed into the general fund and returned to the countywide property tax base in the form of lower millage rates.

Smith offered the mid-county Tax Collector office that opened in 2018 as an example of Ford-Coates’ cooperation with the county government. That office was opened to relieve south county residents from having to travel into Sarasota for their licensing services.

“Our tax collector would never just take the profit that has been earned on the collection for required services and spend it as she sees fit,” Smith said. “She would always work with the county. It would not be for her to spend. We could have just built that mid-county office. Many tax collectors around the state do that, but I can tell you, the Board of County Commissioners likes receiving that money at the end of the year.”

Not letting it go, Moran complained that Ford-Coates gives only brief presentations to the County Commission at budget time because, as a constitutional office, she needs not justify her office’s expenses.

“The last presentation before our board lasted four minutes,” Moran said. “The year before it was one minute because she walks in, she’s proud of the profit and says, ‘I answer to the Department of Revenue. Have a good day.’”

“That's not fair, because that's not true,” Smith shot back. “She is there each and every year. She doesn't need to be there. Her budget is approved by the Department of Revenue. She goes in front of the board each and every year with our budget, and I can tell you when increases happen it’s due to benefits and retirement. 

“We're not spending it on Mont Blanc block pens and fancy paper.”

Bentley summarized the debate by complimenting Moran for taking the slings and arrows when, because of Ford-Coates’ absence, he didn’t have to do so.

“You stood there and you stated your views, and I give you credit for that,” Bentley said.