Stephen Francis, who briefly filed his candidacy for the Winter Springs Commission, announced his intent to withdraw from the race, citing concerns with the city’s current financial state, budgeting practice, and general ethics concerns. In a statement posted online, Francis referenced extensive conversations with past and present city leadership as an integral part of his decision to not pursue public office.
The statement posted online said “Winter Springs has larger scale issues to tackle than I was perhaps (blissfully) unaware of,” citing concerns of “financial reconciliation, balanced budgeting, long range capital improvement planning, general ethics improvements”. After referencing long-term grievances expressed by residents with city leadership, the statement said that given “the significance and scale of the issues facing our city I would not be able to do the role justice on behalf of the residents.”
Analysis:
Mr. Francis expressed sound reasoning for his decision not to run for office. His withdrawal from the race is a strong indictment on current city leadership, who have failed in the three key areas his statement identified:
Financial Reconciliation: the City of Winter Springs has habitually made false assertions of its financial state in public hearings and is chronically late in turning in audited financial statements as required by law. Despite being placed under the oversight of the Governor’s Office of Chief Inspector General, the city has still failed to turn in last year’s audited financial statements.
Balanced Budgeting: the City recently made a policy change to abandon the long-standing practice of “Zero Based Budgeting”, which is typically used to require the justification of expenses in the budgeting process and control spending. Without a zero based budgeting control in place, or audited financial statements completed, the city’s budgeting process lacks the controls to prevent it from spinning wildly out of control.
Long Range Capital Improvement Planning: Winter Springs faces a tremendous liability in its aging wastewater plants. The Governor recently vetoed state funding for the City of Winter Springs as our financial management is under investigation from his office. The decisions of city leadership to spend Penny Sales Tax dollars on items such as police cars and a new roof for city hall instead of properly maintaining bridges which failed during Hurricane Ian, as well as a county audit which highlighted as much as $10-12 million of Penny Sales Tax dollars being spent in a way that “eroded public trust”, have hindered our ability to address important infrastructural challenges.
General Ethics Improvements: Multiple audits, investigations, warning letters, citations and consent orders from the Seminole County Inspector General, Florida State Auditor General, Join Legislative Auditing Committee of the Florida legislature, Chief Inspector General of the Governor’s Office, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, St. John’s River Water Management District and the EPA, have presented a mounting pile of evidence of systemic ethical failures within city leadership. You can read the full documentation and analysis of the audits and our water quality saga.