Barbara Ford-Coates recalls a career of fun in Sarasota tax office

Photos and mementos of a half-century career line the walls and adorn tops of tables and credenzas, lending an air of intimacy to an otherwise spacious corner office of the historic Terrace Building. Yellow adhesive notes identify drawers and boxes whether their contents will remain or be removed.

The space is an exhibit of former Sarasota County Tax Collector Barbara Ford-Coates’ calling to serve residents in a county that more than doubled in population during her tenure, which ended on Jan. 7. The movers were due to arrive five days earlier to empty the office of all personal effects.

“I said there's no way I'm going to be able to pack all this stuff up or go through it all, and God knows where I'm going to put it,” Ford-Coates said.

Her November 2024 election loss of former Sarasota County Commissioner Mike Moran in November notwithstanding, Ford-Coates had intended to move out of the office as she had initially not intended to seek an 11th four-year term. She changed her mind upon learning Moran, who was being term-limited as a county commissioner last year, had filed to run for her position. 

The two had been embroiled in a year-long legal skirmish regarding whether the Tax Collector's Office was obligated to collect assessments from county clients of Florida PACE, a public entity that provides homeowners with financing options for energy-efficient and hurricane-resistant home improvements of which Moran was executive director.

Moran won by a 58.2% to 48.7% margin, a difference of 6,792 votes.

A year of change

On the morning of the Sept. 5 Tiger Bay Club luncheon and scheduled debate between the tax collector candidates, Ford-Coates’ husband of 51 years, Brian, was rushed to Sarasota Memorial Hospital, preventing her from attending.

He died 13 days later in the home he built for his family.

In addition to Barbara, he left behind seven daughters, three they had together, one he brought into the marriage and three others they consider their own. “We took three in at 18 when their parents were not getting along with them, so we count seven,” Ford-Coates said.

All but two of them live elsewhere: one in Riverview, one in North Carolina just north of Greensboro, one in Virginia, one in New York but currently studying in Chicago, and one in Las Vegas.

Following her first and only election loss after winning 10 — some opposed and some not — her children were conciliatory.

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“My kids on election night told me retirement is not so bad. I thought that was a good attitude and so I went out and told the staff I'll be okay, although I will miss everybody,” she said. “I told them no matter whose name is on the door or how you feel, do the next right thing. Keep doing the right thing because they know how to take care of people. Be the next person who makes a difference.”

Those boxes and other contents from the office have been moved to her home. She doesn’t plan to stay in the home permanently, but for now it is her staging area as she determines what to do with her lifetime of professional and personal keepsakes, which she said will occupy her time during her early days of retirement. 

In addition to her own office, “I have my husband's office with all his model trains and cameras and binoculars and things that he restored to go through and figure out,” she said.

She doesn’t plan to leave Sarasota, though, her roots here are too deep to sever.

“At one time, we had four generations of Ford-Coates here,” she said.

Rapid career advancement

Prior to becoming the county’s chief tax collector, Ford-Coates had worked in the office for nine years beginning in 1975, seven of them as assistant tax collector to her predecessor Rebecca Eger. She joined the tax office as a cashier for tax season because she thought it might be “fun” and may offer an opportunity for advancement.

She found that fun, and rapid advancement, in part by questioning the processes and devising ways to improve them.

“If a person came in without a bill, we had a giant rotary file where we printed all the bills so we could pull the file and pay it. The first thing I did, without being asked, was write a manual because nobody had the processes in writing,” Ford-Coates said. “I didn't know what my talent was back then, but I discovered it's creating systems that work. I worked in delinquent taxes, I worked in accounting, and I was the one asking, ‘Why are we doing this?’ 

“Two years later I was the assistant tax collector.”

Recognizing Ford-Coates’ ability to run the Tax Collector’s Office, Eger recommended her as her replacement, officially appointed by then-Gov. Bob Graham, a fellow Democrat. The political campaign to keep the job, though, began immediately.

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“I was sworn in May 1, had my first campaign meeting May 2, and on May 3 I had two Republican opponents,” Ford-Coates said. “After the primary, the losing Republican endorsed me, and we won. The rest is history.”

Since 1984, Ford-Coates won nine elections, some opposed and some not, as she fastidiously employed her penchant for improving systems in order to make the Tax Collector’s Office operate more efficiently while serving a continuously growing population.

Many of the innovations, she said, came from tax payers’ questions.

“A customer once asked us, ‘Why don't you email me my bill?’ and we said, “That’s a good question. Would you like to be part of a group where we try that out?’” she said. That customer, among other volunteers, participated in a beta test to transmit tax bills and receive payments electronically.

“I think we were the first county in Florida to do that,” she said.

That pilot program was in 2008. Previously, the office sent paper bills in three parts, the entire system relying on the U.S. Postal Service. “The bill would come back in, we'd validate it, we'd keep one copy and we would mail a receipt back to every person in the county,” she said. “And so we started saying, ‘Please remove the bottom copy and keep it with your canceled check.’”

That change, also requested by a taxpayer, saved the office about $20,000 per year before the eventual transition to electronic delivery.

“Again that change came because the customer asked a question, and we had the opportunity to create that system that worked much better,” Ford-Coates said.

‘You just have to get there’

More than part of her job, designing systems that result in greater efficiency is something of a hobby for Ford-Coates. She said she has dedicated much of her career to creating better ways for residents to interact with what is otherwise generally regarded as a less-than-pleasant experience.

“There's always a better way, and even if we are doing it better than anybody else, there’s always a better way,” she said. “When some people hear a complaint, they assume the customer is wrong, or they just didn't understand. That's no fun. Go back and re-read what's on the website. Maybe we can reword it. Do we need to do better training? Do we need to have a card with hints for the staff so that they know where to send people who come to us by mistake? Yeah, that's fun. I’m good at that.”

On Tuesday, Jan. 7, the profile page on the Tax Collector’s Office website had already been transitioned from Ford-Coates to Moran. In the short term, Barbara Ford-Coates, a private citizen, said she will focus on sorting through her mementoes, deciding what to do with her late husband’s collectibles, and preparing her house for market.

“I’m sure there will come some volunteer opportunity or process, but I need to get my house in order literally and figuratively,” she said. “Something will come along. That's how life is. There is always a celebration around the corner. You just have to get there.”