The CIT Reserve Was for the Rays. Council Was Told Amendment 3.

On August 17, Council Member Lynn Hurtak asked the city’s Chief Financial Officer why $22 million of Community Investment Tax projects were on hold. He told her it was because Amendment 3 might pass. Council Member Bill Carlson asked him to confirm it had nothing to do with the Rays. “Yes, sir.”

Tuesday evening, at the first public hearing on the FY27 budget, the Deputy CFO explained the same money differently. The budget was built assuming the city would “be required” to pay the Rays $20 million a year for four years out of the CIT, so the money was parked in reserve and the projects were never appropriated.

Both men work for the same mayor. Both were describing the same $22 million. Only one of them mentioned the baseball team.

What was in the budget

The first thing I looked at when the mayor’s budget came out was whether the Rays stadium was in it. Nothing said “Rays” or “stadium.” What it had was $26.2 million of CIT revenue set aside in FY27, including $23 million in a Grants and Aids Budget Reserve — a fund that in every prior year had been a small placeholder in an operating account. Two more years of reserves followed in the forecast. The money had no name on it.

It didn’t need one. On May 21, council had approved a memorandum of understanding with the Rays, 4-3. And while “non-binding”, it committed the city to $80 million in four annual $20 million payments from the renewed CIT. Twenty million a year is what was missing from the CIT project list.

August 17: “not for the discussions with the Rays”

At the budget workshop, Hurtak spoke of going through with council’s budget analyst the capital project deferral report the CFO had sent over during the break. The last page listed every CIT project on hold — the police headquarters elevator, Borrell Park, Gadsden Park, playground surfacing, Jackson Heights security, public safety communications, the MacDill access road. About $22 million. “All of that has been put on hold for the Rays,” she said. “We’re not going to take away projects from the public because of a baseball team.”

Chair Alan Clendenin asked whether the deferrals were about Amendment 3. Hurtak said no: Amendment 3 is property tax, and the CIT is a sales tax that can only be spent on parks, mobility, public safety vehicles and facilities. Then she put the question to CFO Dennis Rogero directly.

Read it twice. “Partially correct” is answering Hurtak’s inventory — the parks money, the vehicles. What follows is not partial. The projects are held “not for the discussions with the Rays, again, it is because of” Amendment 3. “Again,” as if this had been settled. Everything after it is about the General Fund.

Carlson, whose motion had produced the deferral list, wanted it on the record.

“Just like you clarified.” Carlson was repeating Rogero’s own framing back to him, and Rogero let it stand.

What the CFO could say

In fairness, because it is in the same transcript. Two hours earlier, at 5:54 PM, Hurtak had said of the $20 million, “it sounds like we are not going in that direction. So we will have this money.” Right after “Yes, sir,” Carlson said the administration would be “announcing in the next few days where they want any Rays money to come from.” Everyone in the room knew the CIT plan was being abandoned.

So Rogero could have said, yes, originally they were held back because Council had approved the MOU. Now we’re going in a different funding direction and if Amendment 3 doesn’t pass, we can revisit the project list. But for some reason, he didn’t want to so much as even admit that.

August 27 and 31: the deal, and the memo

On August 27, council approved the stadium funding agreement, 4-3. The city’s $80 million is still four $20 million payments, the first due January 1, but the agreement says they come from “legally available revenues” and Rogero told council the city intends to borrow. Carlson, explaining his vote: “We’re not using CIT now.” A member of the public thanked council for keeping its word to the voters.

Four days later, Rogero sent council a memo answering Clendenin’s charge from the workshop that the administration hides revenue from council. On the CIT it said this: “Now that the funding plan for the Public Infrastructure Financing Plan has been presented and approved by Council, those CIT-R revenues currently held in reserves with the FY2027 Budget will become available for distribution.”

There is no document called the Public Infrastructure Financing Plan. I checked every council agenda, supporting document and transcript from mid-July through the September 10 agendas. The only thing council presented and approved that fits is the Rays funding agreement, which the memo does not name. The CFO wrote a capitalized title for a plan that doesn’t exist rather than write the word “Rays.”

Read the sentence for what it says. The reserve is released now that the Rays deal is approved. Not in November, when the Amendment 3 vote happens. Now. If the hold had been about Amendment 3, nothing council did on August 27 would have freed a dollar of it. The memo is the administration, in writing, tying the CIT reserve to the Rays — four days after the CFO told council it wasn’t.

September 8: “at that time, when we prepared the budget”

Rogero was out sick for the first budget hearing. Deputy CFO Mike Perry took the questions. Council Member Naya Young asked what happens to the deferred projects if Amendment 3 doesn’t pass.

“$20 million per year for the first four years” is the MOU council approved in May. Perry didn’t equivocate about why the CIT projects went unfunded. And then he said the part that should get more attention than the contradiction: the first claim on the funds that just got freed up is the debt service on whatever the city borrows to pay the Rays.

So the CIT is still paying for the stadium, at least at the start. It goes through a loan now instead of a check, and the city’s cut of the stadium district’s property taxes that is supposed to repay that loan doesn’t exist until there’s something on the site to tax. In the Rays’ own minimum scenario, the city isn’t made whole until around year 31, before interest. Council was told on August 27 that it wasn’t using the CIT. The Deputy CFO said twelve days later that the CIT reserve’s first job is to service the Rays borrowing. At least when I hear “one pot” that’s what I took from his comment.

Three explanations in three weeks

• July 30. The budget arrives with $23 million of CIT in an unnamed reserve. No explanation.
• August 17. Asked twice, the CFO says the projects are held for Amendment 3, “not for the discussions with the Rays.”
• August 27. The city borrows the $80 million instead. “We’re not using CIT now.”
• August 31. The CFO’s memo releases the reserve “now that” a plan council approved is in place. The plan is the Rays agreement. The memo doesn’t say so.
• September 8. The Deputy CFO: the reserve existed because of the Rays, and its first use will be Rays debt service.

None of those is the same story, and the one the budget was actually built on — the one Perry told — is the one council never heard from Rogero.

What I make of it

Rogero and the administration have been accused for years, by members of the public and by council members, of hiding money and playing “shell” games. Clendenin’s memo request came out of that. Until now I have defended the CFO and his staff. The information is there if you take the time to understand it. Every funding request comes with a summary sheet that says where the money comes from. The budget is online for anyone to read.

I can’t defend this one. Council asked a direct question about $22 million, twice, and got an answer that omitted the reason the money was set aside in the first place. The deputy said the reason out loud. The memo said it in writing, behind a project name that doesn’t exist. Call that what you want. I know what I call it, and it isn’t “carefully parsing words”.

I sent the three quotes to the administration on Wednesday with a request for comment. I’ll update this if they answer.