{"id":136692,"date":"2026-01-29T20:13:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T20:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/136692\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T20:13:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T20:13:05","slug":"florida-cfo-ingoglia-fires-back-at-st-petersburg-mayor-over-wasteful-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/136692\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida CFO Ingoglia fires back at St. Petersburg mayor over wasteful spending"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Florida Chief Financial Officer\u00a0Blaise Ingoglia\u00a0fired back Thursday at\u00a0Ken Welch\u00a0after the St. Petersburg mayor dismissed state criticism of city spending, accusing Welch of missing the bigger fiscal picture.<\/p>\n

In a post<\/a> on X, Ingoglia challenged Welch directly, writing:\u00a0\u201cQUESTION for [Mayor Ken Welch]: How much rotting infrastructure, broken sewer lines and flooding problems could you have already fixed if you didn\u2019t waste the $49M last year on bureaucrats?\u201d<\/p>\n

The CFO\u2019s message was part of a broader post slamming local government budgets he said have ballooned at the expense of taxpayers.<\/p>\n

The post underscored Ingoglia\u2019s contention that officials like Welch have failed to address what his office defines as unnecessary expense, part of ongoing reviews by the Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight, or FAFO, that have flagged millions in spending across municipalities.<\/p>\n

FAFO audits have shown St. Petersburg\u2019s general fund budget growing far faster than population in recent years, a point Ingoglia has emphasized repeatedly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ingoglia has made fiscal accountability a hallmark of his tenure since being appointed CFO in mid-2025 and is campaigning this year for a full four-year term. His social media critique of Welch reflects a broader push to spotlight what he calls \u201cexcessive\u201d spending and to push for property tax relief for Floridians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Florida Chief Financial Officer\u00a0Blaise Ingoglia\u00a0fired back Thursday at\u00a0Ken Welch\u00a0after the St. Petersburg mayor dismissed state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-136692","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-st-pete","9":"tag-st-pete-headlines","10":"tag-st-pete-news","11":"tag-st-petersburg","12":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","13":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}