In a previous blog, we revealed how the seven elected officials in North Miami Beach are spending their “discretionary” funds.

Although they are each allotted an insane $20,000.00 a year, $6,500.00 of that amount they illegally voted to give to themselves as “compensation.”

And, although the four Criminal Commissioners, Michael Joseph, McKenzie Fleurimond, Paule Villard, and Daniela Jean, violated Article II, Sec. 2-3 of the Charter by illegally voting to give themselves this raise, their personal consiglieri, City “Attorney” Hans Ottinot defended this compensation by calling it an “expense account.”

The Internal Revenue Service, however, is very clear on what constitutes “compensation” vs. an “expense account.”

According to 26 U.S. Code § 162, accountable plan expense accounts are non-taxable only if they meet three criteria:

• The expenses must have a business connection;
• The expenses must be substantiated within a reasonable period; and
• The employee must return any money not spent to the employer, also within a reasonable period.

A non-accountable plan, on the other hand, is a reimbursement plan or policy which does not meet all the requirements for an accountable plan. Amounts paid under a non-accountable plan are income to the employee and must be included in wages with appropriate tax withholdings.

The additional $6,500.00 that the Criminal Four voted to give themselves does not fall into the approved Accountable Plan in that these funds are non-accountable, taxable income, or compensation.

In one of our complaints to The Florida Bar, we explained that by allowing the Commission increase its compensation by only four (4) votes instead of the required five (5) votes per the City’s Charter, Hans Ottinot’s representation on behalf  of the City’s residents is incompetent.

As expected, those complaints went nowhere.

Not that we expected much.

Unfortunately, The Florida Bar, which allegedly exists to “Regulate the practice of law in Florida; ensure the highest standards of legal professionalism in Florida; and protect the public by prosecuting unethical attorneys and preventing the unlicensed practice of law,” sees absolutely nothing wrong with incompetent representation.

Considering that the “Bar Leadership” is made up of — you guessed it — lawyers, they apparently do everything in their power to protect unethical lawyers from the consequences of their actions.  Which is precisely the reason there are so many shysters who are allowed to keep their law licenses.

It’s sorta like when the American Medical Association, an organization made up of doctors, covers up for the medical mistakes of its members.

Or when police unions engage in covering up for bad cops.

If only there was an oversight agency authorized to protect the public from the corrupt acts of public officials.

Oh, wait!  There is!

It’s called the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.

That would be the agency headed by the very same State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle who refused to issue an arrest warrant for North Miami Beach EX-Mayor/Current Convicted Felon Myron Rosner because he was married to then-Circuit Court Judge Sarah Zabel, and then dismantled her public corruption unit after a Broward State Attorney did the job she refused to do.

Because, like the Florida Bar, the American Medical Association, and far too many Police Unions across the country, corrupt politicians will always protect themselves.

Ditto for North Miami Beach City Manager Arthur “Duke” Sorey, who like Hans, will protect his four Criminal bosses at any cost.

He will especially protect Criminal Commissioner Paule Villard, whose re-election will protect his job for at least the next two years, and whose campaign he is funding with your tax dollars to make sure that happens.

We will be blogging more about that in the months to come, but for now let’s take a look at how irresponsibly, and probably illegally, Paule and her co-conspirators are spending your money with no oversight by the Manager and his corrupt cronies at City Hall.

All of the seven elected officials have their own Purchasing Cards, a/k/a P Cards, which are Bank of America credit cards in each of their names.  The statements are sent to them, in care of the City of North Miami Beach, and are paid through the City’s General Fund.

As we mentioned in an earlier blog, if North Miami Beach was managed properly, every one of the elected official’s purchases would be categorized and, if applicable, deducted from their individual discretionary fund accounts, travel accounts, membership dues accounts, etc., and each of those accounts would be capped by a maximum dollar amount.

For example, as we explained earlier, they each have a discretionary (a/k/a contingency) fund of $20,000.00, minus the $6,500.00 “expense account” (which is in reality compensation), leaving $13,500.00 for them to spend on “discretionary” items.

In fiscally responsible cities, there are policies in place with explicit directives as to how this money is to be spent.

In North Miami Beach, however, there are no rules.

The FY2021-22 Budget mentions the word “contingency” only once on page 166, the vague definition of which is, “An appropriation of funds to cover unforeseen events that occur during the fiscal year.”

Then again, that very same budget also defines “The governing body of the City of North Miami Beach” as the “City Council,” and accordingly refers to the “City Council” ten times throughout the document, even though a 2016 Charter Amendment referendum changed the governing body to a “Commission.”

We here at VotersOpinion organized all the P Card statements of the elected officials for the first six months of the current fiscal year, from October 1, 2021 through March 31, 2022.  We then prepared a few handy-dandy spreadsheets, which are self-explanatory, so that you can see at a glance who are the biggest spenders of your money.

Here are the totals spent by each of elected officials on their P Cards.

This is the breakdown of travel expenses by each elected official.  Totals include registration fee, air fare, ground transportation, fuel, meals, and hotel stays.

And finally, here are the totals spent by each elected official on membership dues for various organizations.

Now let’s take a close look at the spending habits of your elected officials, starting with our favorite Criminal Commissioner, Paule Villard.

As we already mentioned, on the last day of FY 2020-21, Paule charged $999.86 to Instant Promotion for her campaign-like “promotional” tent, which was not deducted from her discretionary fund for that year.  Did you get a thank you card for the gift?

The very next day, however, on October 1, 2021, Paule charged an additional $274.99 to the same vendor.  Despite repeated public records requests for a corresponding invoice for this charge, we still have not received a response.  Regardless of what she purchased, that amount was also not deducted from her discretionary fund for this year.

Also in October, Paule traveled to Fort Myers for the Florida Redevelopment Association Annual Conference.  That trip, including registration fee, hotel, rental car, and gas, cost taxpayers $1,075.66.

In November, you paid for her membership to the National Haitian American Elected Officials Network (NHAEON), even though this expense has no public benefit for the residents of North Miami Beach.  The good news, however inconsequential, is that at least this amount was deducted from her discretionary fund account.

According to the City’s finance records, there was no P Card statement for the period December 4, 2021 through January 4, 2022.  We do not for one minute believe that Paule refrained from spending, especially during the Christmas season.  We’ve heard some interesting things, but we’re not at liberty to divulge just yet.  You can bet, though, that we’ll be digging deeper.

Nevertheless, Paule more than made up for her spending in January by traveling to Chandler Arizona for the weekend of January 28-30, 2022 to attend the National Haitian American Elected Officials Network (NHAEON)’s Leadership Retreat Program.  This trip cost North Miami Beach taxpayers a total of $874.68, including $97.00 for transportation by Jet Limousine, which was not deducted from her discretionary funds.

Must be nice.

In February, Paule spent $79.18 at the Sashes For Love store at Etsy.com, and $350.96 at Discountmugs.com.  While we have requested copies of those invoices, we’re speculating that one of those charges were for these campaign mugs she’s been giving out at her taxpayer-funded Senior Luncheon Campaign events.  Neither of these expenditures appear to be deducted from her discretionary funds.

And finally, in March Paule really went to town with her P Card.

She paid another $1,817.00 to Instant Promotion, the same company that supplied her blue taxpayer-funded campaign tent.  We don’t have that invoice yet, but we’re pretty sure it was for the pink taxpayer-funded campaign tent that she ordered for her “Unsung Heroes” event in which she “honored” twenty-seven Haitian women, along with seven token non-Haitians.

And, of course, this expense was not deducted from her discretionary fund account.

Paule also spent $180.00 to Wristbandbros.com and another $280.77 to Discountmugs.com for more taxpayer-funded campaign materials.

She also spent $753.11 on a trip to Orlando, including $387.00 for a hotel room.  We have no idea why she was there, but we do know she traveled with her co-conspirator, Criminal Commissioner Daniela Jean, who spent $460.95 on her hotel room (more on Daniela’s outrageous spending in Part 2).

As we revealed in our earlier blog, Paule had already blown through $10,641.00 of her discretionary fund as of March 31, 2022, with only $2,859.00 to spare.

We’re still not sure how accurate this accounting is, especially regarding the $2,025.00 and $2,000.00 deductions on January 11 and January 14, respectively.  Since these amounts were not itemized, we have no idea what they were for, or if they correspond to any of the charges on her P Card for that month.

We aim to find out.

In our next installment of P Card Madness, we will closely examine the P Card spending of the rest of the elected officials.

In the meantime, keep this thought in mind.

In addition to all of her uncontrolled spending of your money, thanks to Duke Sorey, while you’re paying an average of $4.527 a gallon for gasoline, Criminal Commissioner Paule Villard is being chauffeured 24/7 in a taxpayer-funded SUV fueled by you at the City pumps, and sending you the bill for North Miami Beach Police Officer Jerry Hamilton’s annual salary of $88,377.33, plus overtime, for the privilege.

VOTE THIS BIG SPENDER OUT ON NOVEMBER 8, 2022!

Stephanie