Lauren Ritchie:
Do officials’ finances matter to voters?
How does a guy who makes nearly $169,000 a year get to declare bankruptcy, wipe out nearly $400,000 in debt and keep collecting that sweet salary as an elected public official?
Ask Michael Graves, the elected public defender for Lake and four other counties.
The messy financial meltdown happened after Graves, 60, a high-flying hot-shot defense attorney, got elected, leaving voters unable to take the financial irresponsibility into account when deciding whether to hand him the office. He welshed on $88,000 in credit card and credit-line debt and left a local bank in the lurch for another $187,000.
He isn’t the only elected official with personal financial trouble.
Orlando Commissioner Regina Hill, who faced six opponents in November’s race, narrowly won her seat with 50.2 percent of the vote. Her closest rival finished with 24.7 percent. Hill had a year-old Mercedes and two other cars when she filed bankruptcy for the second time.
However, voters unexpectedly tossed former Republican State Rep. Chris Dorworth of Lake Mary in 2012 after they learned he owed more than $4 million in unpaid debts. Although he did not declare bankruptcy, his unpaid debt included a land deal gone bad and his 8,200-square-foot house in tony Heathrow, on which he’d stopped paying the $10,000-a-month mortgage obligation, according to court documents. Now, he’s a successful lobbyist.
Does mismanagement of personal finances matter to voters anymore?
So many hard-working, decent people found themselves with houses and bills they couldn’t afford after the economy collapsed in 2008 that the viewpoint on bankruptcy seems to have changed — at least a little.
What used to be a shameful process reserved only for the most flagrant spenders became a bad life experience that could happen to anyone, regardless of how diligent they previously had been about paying their bills.
Graves, whose case concluded in May, is still trying to live it down.
“I’m embarrassed,” he said, chain-smoking cigarettes during a telephone interview several weeks ago. “I understand as a public official, I’m subject to a little closer review than everybody else.”
Indeed. And public officials entrusted with $10 million annual budgets like his must regain the trust of voters by being efficient and judicious with taxpayer money if they have managed their own so badly. Graves, who was elected in 2012 and reelected in 2016, said his office hasn’t exceeded its budget since he took office.
Before that, Graves and his
private law partner, John Spivey, now his chief assistant, had a thriving, high-energy criminal-defense practice in an office they built in the early 2000s just down the street from the Lake County Courthouse and county jail in Tavares.
When the real-estate bust hit, their business tanked. Their clients, who mostly struggled to pay their lawyers anyway, stopped hiring private attorneys, turning instead to the public defender whose legal bill is a fraction of what Graves and Spivey would have charged.
With $4,000 a month due to First Green Bank, headquartered in Mount Dora at the time, Graves said they couldn’t keep up the payments.
“We looked at everything — a short sale to sell the building. The problem is you’ve got substantial debt beyond the value,” he said. “Nothing would satisfy the debt.”
Then, Spivey filed bankruptcy, leaving Graves responsible for the entire First Green debt, and setting in motion his own inevitable bankruptcy. The public defender said he tried to negotiate with the bank but was unable to reach a monthly payment it would accept.
First Green foreclosed and sold the building, leaving Graves saddled with a $186,862 deficiency judgment — that’s the difference between the amount the pair owed and the amount for which the bank was able to sell the building.
Throw in about $40,000 in credit-card debt and another $48,000 of debt from a business line of credit, along with a monthly alimony payment of $5,500, and Graves said he had little choice but to declare bankruptcy, which he did earlier this year.
By the time he filed, he undoubtedly was right — there wasn’t much to salvage. But part of being responsible with money involves quickly making life changes when one’s salary doesn’t cover one’s desired lifestyle. It’s a sign of being a grown up.
Can’t pay off that item on your Chase card this month? Then don’t buy it. Don’t have a savings account? Rip up that card. You can’t handle it if you’re living paycheck to paycheck. Ditch the Porsche payment. And in Graves’ case, stop spending that $395.42 you declared you lay out every month for cigarettes. They’re going to kill you anyway.
A personal bankruptcy probably isn’t a big enough reason to vote against a candidate, but voters who feel uncomfortable should feel free to ask questions — and elected officials should follow Graves’ example and answer them honestly and openly.