For the second time in eight months, Okaloosa County Tax Collector Ben Anderson is proposing that bed taxes be collected by his office instead of the clerk of court.
He also predicts his office could increase the bed tax collections by 25 percent during the first year if given the opportunity.
“We will be able to increase the number of people paying the tourist development tax because we have experience and we have a larger field staff that can go out and knock on doors,” Anderson said Wednesday. “Nobody can collect tax better than us.”
Anderson will make his proposal to county commissioners at their meeting Tuesday in Fort Walton Beach.
Clerk of Court Don Howard, who also plans to attend the meeting, said he sees no need for a shift of duties.
“We’ve been performing that function for over 20 years, and in my opinion, doing it very efficiently,” he said.
County commissioners agreed with Howard last July when they unanimously rejected Anderson’s proposal.
Anderson could find a more receptive audience this time around.
Commissioners Kelly Windes and Nathan Boyles have been elected to the board since then. Windes has been a vocal critic of the clerk of court’s role in the fraud scandal concocted by former tourism head Mark Bellinger.
The county also is still feeling the sting of the state auditor general’s sweeping report on the mismanagement of millions of dollars in bed tax revenue and BP oil spill grant funds during Bellinger’s tenure.
Anderson said the auditor general’s report makes it clear the clerk of court was responsible for processing many of the checks that paid for Bellinger’s questionable purchases. He said the report also indicates that the clerk of court should focus on “the documentation and the proper accounting of the spending of bed tax money.”
“He has no reason to be in the tax collecting business,” Anderson said. “In any business you should not have the same person receiving the money and spending the money because you do not have proper checks and balances in place.”
But Howard said it’s unfair to use the TDC scandal to gain control over bed tax collections.
“(The scandal) had nothing to do with the collection of the tax,” he said. “The problem was you had an individual who was involved in fraudulent activity and was very adept at covering his tracks.”
Howard said his office followed the county’s procedures in place at the time, and that Bellinger hid what he was doing from everyone in county government.
“There was nothing in those invoices that would give you any indication that there was something being paid for or purchased that was outside the scope of the contract,” he said.
Howard said Anderson is motivated by the 3 percent commission his office would receive on the bed tax revenues it processes.
“I suspect it’s about the revenue,” Howard said. “Why else would a constitutional officer be trying to take on another function other than the revenue?”
For fiscal 2012, which ended last Sept. 30, the clerk of court’s office received a $390,0000 commission on almost $13 million in bed tax collections. Howard used a portion of that money to pay the salary of Patsy Willbanks, the TDC auditor. She is the sole employee who oversees bed tax collection, enforcement and auditing.
Howard said the rest of the 3 percent commission is added to the excess fees he returns to the county every year. In 2012, he returned about $624,000.
“We’ve got a long, steady history of returning sizable amounts of money to the county, and that’s a good thing,” he said.
If his office loses the 3 percent commission, the county would receive less money in returned funds each year, he added.
Howard said Willbanks is an experienced auditor who “goes out once a week into the field” to visit businesses that are subject to paying the tourist development tax.
“And she’s finding new accounts all the time,” he said. “Sometimes people just don’t realize they’re supposed to pay it.”
Anderson said his office can devote more people and time to the collection of bed taxes than Howard’s can.
“I can put three people in the field today,” he said. “This is what they do. They’re very experienced.”
Anderson said his proposal is about accountability and proper accounting, not getting extra money for his office.
“What it really comes down to … is you cannot have the fox watching the hen house,” he said. “(The clerk of court) is the one spending the money, so who’s auditing the collection of the money? … I know I can do a better job of the collecting.”
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Kari Barlow at 850-315-4438 or kbarlow@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @KariBnwfdn.