BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
STARKE— The new county manager for Bradford County said that after he fills a vacancy for his executive assistant and then ties up some loose ends he inherited when he took over the job in Starke, he will focus on what he said is the county’s most significant need, finding new revenues.
Bradford Commissioners hired former Keystone Heights City Manager Scott Kornegay last month to run their departments and told their new hire that shoring up the county’s finances is their Number 1 priority.
The county used its reserves to balance its budget for the current fiscal year and is looking at another problematic budget season next spring.
Kornegay said that after reviewing the county’s departments, he doesn’t see many opportunities for cutting costs, calling the operation he took over as “lean.”
He added that on the revenue side, the first alternative policymakers usually go to for increasing revenues is not an option in Starke.
“We can’t tax our way out of it because statutorily, we’re already capped at 10 mills,” he said. “So, we’re going to have to come up with other things, and of course, we’ll try and look to see where we can cut if we can. But I can already tell you that things are pretty lean as they are, but there could be some room there for some savings.”
The new manager said that despite the fiscal challenges, he sees opportunities in Bradford.
“I’m excited,” he said. “There’s a lot of opportunity here, and we’re going to do our very best to make sure that Bradford County moves forward.”
Military policeman, firefighter
Kornegay said he was raised in Dothan, Alabama, and moved to Jacksonville, Florida, after high school to live with an aunt and uncle while attending Florida State College.
While in Jacksonville, he joined the Florida Air National Guard and spent 10 years as a military policeman for the guard’s 126th Fighter Interceptor Group. Based at Jacksonville International Airport, the group flew F-106s and F-15s, among other aircraft.
In 1993 he joined Jacksonville Fire Rescue and spent the next 23 years as a firefighter, paramedic and suppression lieutenant.
During the last three years of his service, he was an administrative officer and program manager.
He said his most successful project while working a desk was reducing the city’s ISO rating, which saved residents $32 million annually in homeowners insurance premiums.
“We improved the water supply in rural areas,” he said. “We also purchased additional equipment and built new fire stations.”
During his Jacksonville Fire Rescue service, Kornegay earned a bachelor’s degree in public administration from Flagler College and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of North Florida.
Three days after retiring from JFRD, Kornegay became the City Manager in Keystone Heights.
Lazy assets and lakes
Kornegay said that one of his first accomplishments after arriving in the Lake Region was putting to use an unused asset: a building on city property behind Hitchcock’s grocery store.
“I called it a lazy asset,” he said, “that warehouse out there on Sunrise (Boulevard), sitting there vacant, and we did an interior build out and moved our public works operation from the little place there across the street from the fire station to Sunrise.”
Kornegay also points to a streetscape project to upgrade South Lawrence Boulevard as a milestone. The improvements, coordinated with a state Department of Transportation resurfacing project, is still ongoing.
However, his most enduring initiative while in Keystone could be a water summit he organized in 2016.
The three-hour summit at city hall brought together policymakers, including State Senator Rob Bradley and Congressman Ted Yoho, to address declining water levels on Lakes Brooklyn and Geneva that had been occurring for decades.
The gathering eventually led to the Black Creek Water Resource Development Project, a system of pumps, pipelines and water treatment that will take excess water from the North Prong of Black Creek and pump it through a 17-mile pipeline, eventually discharging it into a passive treatment system that will remove color and minor nutrients. From there, the water will flow into Alligator Creek and ultimately Lake Brooklyn, where recharge to the aquifer will occur through the lake bottom.
Power couple
Kornegay’s wife, Diane, is an accomplished public servant in her own right, serving as the school superintendent in Lake County. Her assistant superintendent for human resources is former Bradford superintendent Chad Farnsworth.
Diane Kornegay began her teaching career in Duval County, finishing her stint in Jacksonville as principal of Kings Trail Elementary School. She entered the Clay district as principal of W.E. Cherry Elementary School in 2002, serving in the same capacity at Argyle Elementary three years later. In 2007 she became the district’s director of school improvement and teacher training and was promoted again four years later to assistant superintendent for instruction. Kornegay replaced retiring deputy superintendent Denise Adams in June 2015.
She took over the Lake County district in 2017.
The Kornegays live in Bradford County, in a home formally owned by Diane’s family on Santa Fe Lake.
Scott Kornegay said that on Monday mornings, his wife leaves home for the nearly two-hour commute to Tavares, then stays in a condo in Howie-in-the-Hills during the workweek, returning to Bradford County on Friday.
“I go down there as often as I can during the week,” he said, “spending the night, typically on Wednesday nights.”
Rotary and economic development
Kornegay is a two-time past president of the Keystone Heights Rotary Club and now serves as an assistant governor for Rotary District 6970, which covers northeast Florida.
He is also a five-time Paul Harris Fellow with Rotary.
After retiring as Keystone Heights City Manager, Kornegay served on the board of the city’s airport and as the executive director of the Lake Region Development Corporation, an outgrowth of the Save Our lakes Organization and devoted to fostering economic development and managing growth in the Keystone Heights area.
The corporation has sponsored a food truck event in Keystone, spearheaded the creation of the Lake Region Prosperity Partners: a council of the Clay Chamber of Commerce, and funded improvements to Keystone Beach Park.
