INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — After special meetings of the Indian River County Commission, the Vero Beach City Council and the Indian River Shores Town Council to express dismay over the Auditor General’s findings on the wasteful spending and investment failures of the Florida Municipal Power Agency, county and city leaders took the matter to Tallahassee on Monday.
Vero Beach City Councilwoman Pilar Turner, County Administrator Joe Baird, County Attorney Dylan Reingold, Assistant County Attorney Kate Pingolt Cotner and all of the County Commissioners except Wesley Davis and Joe Flescher attended a Joint Legislative Audit Committee meeting Monday afternoon in the Florida Senate Office Building. Officials were in Tallahassee for Tuesday’s hearing of the Florida Public Service Commission.
The committee, which is comprised of both Florida Senate and House members and includes local Rep. Debbie Mayfield, oversees the Auditor General’s office. The county intended to ask the committee to drill deeper into the fiscal policies and practices of the FMPA and its lobbying wing, the Florida Municipal Electric Association.
Commissioner Tim Zorc traveled to Tallahassee on Sunday and spent the day Monday delivering copies of the FMPA audit findings to House and Senate members whose legislative districts encompass one or more of the 31 FMPA member cities.
“Today is just to meet and greet the other members of the committee so they see how important this issue is to us,” Zorc said. “We would like to see the questions that weren’t answered by the auditors, such as the fair market value of the FMPA and each member’s equitable position – could they recommend looking at those? Personally I’d like to see the FMEA association with FMPA looked at as well.”
The local officials were not on the audit committee’s agenda, but showed up in hopes of introducing themselves to committee members. Near the end of the 20-minute session, Mayfield introduced the local officials and said an issue would come before the committee that the local communities in her district were very interested in. The committee chair said he was aware of the issue and, when the audit was final, the committee would, “take the appropriate action.”
After the meeting, Turner and county officials informally chatted with staffers of the committee members.
Also on Monday afternoon, the Indian River Shores Town Council unanimously approved a strong resolution expressing the town’s concern about the FMPA’s mismanagement and lack of regulatory oversight, a situation that results in high wholesale power costs which are passed on to the City of Vero Beach, and in turn, passed down to Vero’s 33,000 electric customers, about 61 percent of which live outside the city limits.
The resolution encouraged Vero “to meet as soon as possible with the FMPA to demand a market appraisal of all assets and liabilities related to the City of Vero Beach and its contractual arrangements with the FMPA.”
Vero Beach, part of a 31-city cooperative that buys high-priced electricity from the FMPA, had wanted to leave the organization and sell its utility to Florida Power & Light, but could not afford the astronomical cost of breaking the contract.
Shores Mayor Brian Barefoot said the FMPA’s “imprudent business decisions,” including fuel hedging, interest rate swaps and overly generous travel, entertainment and benefit policies, “have led to huge increases in rates, which continue to plague our citizens.”
While they applauded the City of Vero Beach for calling on the FMPA to make necessary changes to stop the bad practices, Shores Town Council members contended that Vero should hold the FMPA accountable for damages and force FMPA to drop its opposition to the sale of Vero’s electric system.
A lawsuit filed by the Indian River Shores Town Council against the City over the high utility rates has been put on hold in mediation, but town council members believe the outrageous audit findings could give the city a quicker way out.
“Not only were the executives of the FMPA liable for gross mismanagement but their legal advisors, investment bankers, auditors and bond issuers were involved in what I would consider gross mismanagement or fraud, and I would hope the city will seek reimbursement,” said Councilman Dick Haverland. “We might finally have the ability to get out of the FMPA contract by legal means.”
