Fiscal Rangers

About Vivek & Elon's DOGE or Dept. of Government Efficiency and how to apply

Here is the new, official X account for Vivek and Elon's DOGE or Department of Government Efficiency, and how to apply for a job. Read more →

Police Chief & Two others "mis-appropriate" $80,000 from tiny city in Oklahoma

Elected government officials can learn from reported cases of fraud in local government. This link is to a story where a police chief and two others in the small town of Tryon, OK, population 500, embezzled over $80,000 over several years. The city's total annual budget was about $200,000. One lesson is that the elected officials apparently didn't exercise any type of oversight on the spending. "Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd released her audit of the town of Tryon, between Stillwater and Chandler, on Thursday. She identified a total of $95,000 in misappropriated town funds via unauthorized and personal charges, according to a news release." Funds were withdrawn from city accounts via local casinos "In her audit, Byrd faulted not only the employees who benefited from the misappropriations but also the governing board for the town." "This "Town" Board was just asleep at the wheel." The Police Chief, Jered Pricket, is alleged to have made most of the personal transactions, including $3,700 in "questionable credit card expenditures," including deer hunting supplies. The "misappropriation" was 13% of Tryon's annual budget. “Donations made to the Tryon Police Department, totaling $3,960, were not deposited into the Town’s bank account,” Byrd wrote... Read more →

Lake County, FL watchdog blog FiscalRangers.com launches initiative to outsource city functions to control costs

Most cities in Lake County, FL keep escalating wage, benefit and pension costs each year, Thus this Lake County, FL fiscal watchdog is launching an initiative to demand cities start outsourcing various functions to control escalating costs. The day of constantly passing through 10% benefit costs and wages twice the CPI need to stop because increasing house valuations, plus high millage rates may cause some residents to lose homes due to excessive property tax bills. Most cities don't use performance metrics like businesses to identify excess spending, and that is needed also. Read more →

Why Tavares, FL Taxpayers Don't get all the details on City Council decisions

The City of Tavares, Florida's City Council met yesterday, April 7, 2021. We describe how they are leaving important details related to Council decisions out of the online agenda packet, and they need to provide that online in the future. This is one of several Tavares practices that result in lower transparency than other Lake County, FL cities. Read more →

Lake County, FL has no public law library when most other Florida counties have one

The Lake County, FL Board of County Commissioners needs to refund and re-implement a public Law Library for residents like most other Florida counties have. Read more →

Tavares, FL Residents & Taxpayers: City Council already plans to increase taxes for 2021-2022

The Tavares, FL City Council discussed "Broad Budget Priorities" for the upcoming 2021-2022 budget cycle, and three of them won't go to the rollback rate, indicating taxes will most likely go up again. Read more →

Lake County, FL Board to have final millage and budget hearing tomorrow, Sept. 29, 2020

The Lake County, FL Board is having the final State required meeting to approve millage rates and budgets which will result in higher property taxes due to higher valuations. We provide the meeting details and discuss the issue. Read more →

Tavares, FL August 19, 2020 City Council Meeting: Shootings, Annexations, Traffic, Pickleball, Budgets

The Tavares, FL City Council had their August 19, 2020 meeting and we posted a video link and comments on the agenda items, which included shootings, crime, annexations, city budget, and a Pickleball Court. Read more →

Flagler County, FL - half the population of Lake County, predicts $1.2-million DROP in sales tax revenue

Flagler County, FL announced Pandemic impacts on sales tax revenues, and Lake County, FL might be affected as much or more Read more →

What happens to local city and county cash flow if Florida cuts sales taxes like the UK just did to cope with the Wuhan Virus?

The UK just reduced their VAT, or national sales tax, to zero for awhile. What happens if Florida does the same, or the state government reduces tax revenues sent to local governments due to the Wuhan virus crisis? Will we go through layoffs and increased property taxes in Florida and Lake County? Read more →

Lake County, FL Cities are Raking in your Property Tax Cash Up to 18% OVER the Roll-Back rate and not Explaining How Much

September is when Lake County, FL cities discuss and approve new millage and budget figures after property tax valuation reports are out. Most cities except two of 14 in Lake County are increasing millage rates above the "roll-back" rate, thus increasing tax bills to property owners. Read more →

Tavares, FL City Council plans to discuss hiking budget and increasing the millage rate beyond the rollback rate - Friday, Sept. 6

The City Council of Tavares, FL is having their City Council meeting tomorrow, Friday, Sept. 6, 2019 and they will discuss proposed millage and budget figures. If they continue, should they rename the city Spendalot City or Camelot? Residents need to attend the 4pm meeting and provide input. Read more →

Federal & Florida ADA Compliance laws are wrecking local government transparency and incurring huge costs

Tavares, FL March 11, 2019 Federal and Florida regulations on compliance with the American Disabilities Act (ADA) are causing excess costs and reduced public transparency over local government meeting videos, agendas, budgets and even annual financial reports (CAFR's). Essentially, some scummy lawyers found that ADA requirements can be interpreted to require that any local government has to provide online information in a format that can be read by ADA software tools used by the disabled, such as vision limited or hearing limited. Apparently, the tools use screen "scanning" to find text or picture captions that can then be converted to audio so the disabled can "read" or "hear" the online information. We wrote an earlier story about this in January 2019 HERE, after the Orlando Sentinel published a story about it. It contains more about the scummy lawsuits, so I did not repeat it here. The Jan. 6, 2019 Orlando Sentinel story is here. And very few local governments have the funds to revamp their websites and file systems to comply with the lawsuit demands. Now, a city like Orlando could afford to get the software and modify all their files so they can be read by the ADA tools,... Read more →

The new Villages residents of Fruitland Park continued rants at the City Council about budgets & taxes at the Sept. 27th meeting

The Fruitland Park, FL City Council had two required annual budget and millage hearings which resulted in many complaints from new residents of The Villages within City Boundaries. This contains an overview of issues and links to videos of the two meetings. Read more →

Yippee! Lake County, FL & Three Cities try to increase efficiency by measuring performance metrics

Florida is home to the largest consortium of cities and counties tracking performance benchmarks, called the Florida Benchmarking Consortium. The Lake County government, plus three cities, Mt. Dora, Tavares and Clermont joined FBC last year (2017). The first annual FBC report showing performance measures for more than 30 members was just published in Dec., 2017 for fiscal year 2015-16 and they are in it. We review the overall program here, and will cover specific results in a future article. Read more →

TODAY - How to ask your Florida legislators for FREE STUFF, or maybe some agency oversight!

Visit today's Town Hall of the Lake County, FL state legislators to ask for FREE STUFF, or just ask for fiscal Sanity and new or less legislation to improve life and transparency and oversight in Florida and Lake County. Read more →

Week of July 31, 2017 - Lots of Political News and Plans

This is a recap of all the upcoming political events in Lake County the week of July 31, 2017. Read more →

Reputable Watchdog Group Report says "Florida Finances Slide Further into the Red" with a "C" Grade and shows Deceitful Practice of not funding $9-billion in Retiree Health Insurance Benefits.

The credible watchdog group Truth in Accounting just published their ratings of different state fiscal management ratings and Florida got a C. One deceitful practice used by Florida is to promise government employees big health insurance benefits, currently totaling over $9-billion, but NOT FUNDING it at all. Thus future taxpayers will inherit the bill for these unfunded benefits. Read more →

Florida Huckster State Practice #33 - $500-million South Florida Commuter Rail Contract Dispute Illustrates Poor Contracting Procedures?

Florida Huckster State Case #33 A Florida Commuter Rail Contract for $500+million was awarded using possible Crony Capitalism and Bid Manipulation politics There just seem to be weak standards for ethical contract selections procedures in Huckster Florida, especially in independent agencies in Florida. In this case, the deciding agency, the South Florida Regional Transit Authority (SFRTA - aka Tri-Rail) is also partially funded with Florida taxpayer funds. Suspicious methods were used to award a $500+million contract to a company whose bids were much higher than other competitive bidders who were deemed "ineligible". AND, back in 2011, SFRTA was tied up on a lawsuit over another $100-million contract dispute. Politico.com - Jan. 26, 2017 - " The winner of the South Florida Regional Transit Authority (SFRTA) contract operates Tri-Rail, a commuter rail service that runs on 70.9 miles of track between Jupiter and downtown Miami. The contract could be up a 10-year term." "The public authority that oversees a South Florida commuter rail service is set to award a more than $500 million contract to a company whose bid was tens of millions of dollars higher than its competitors, each of whom was deemed ineligible for the same technical flaw." "Officials... Read more →

Florida the Huckster State Update: Florida's Tourism Promotion Agency Refuses to Disclose payments to promoters

Florida has a tourism promotions agency, Visit Florida, funded with tax money that promotes tourism in Florida. They paid a rapper, Pitbull, to promote Florida tourism on his Twitter account, but will not disclose the payments. Here are links to an Orlando Sentinel article and editorial, and our comments. We consider this to be another example of Florida as a Huckster State, with low level oversight and transparency. Read more →

Lake County, FL Legislators Delegation Summit - Dec. 9, 2015, Leesburg, FL

Every year the five Lake County, Florida Legislators hold their annual Lake County Legislators' Summit to hear three minutes of public input from local agencies and citizens. Yesterday, Dec. 9, 2015, they held the annual meeting for three hours with 53 speakers. They use the input to set their priorities for the upcoming Florida legislation session that starts in January, 2016. Read more →

10+ Reasons to Vote AGAINST Lake County, Florida's $800-million "Infrastructure Sales Tax" Referendum on Nov. 3

On Nov. 3, 2015, the ballot in Lake County, FL will have a referendum asking voters to renew an existing one penny sales tax for another 15 years that will generate between $450-800-million in taxes. The funds will be for capital spending like buildings or computers or vehicles and split in thirds for each of these three groups: 1) Lake County government, the 14 cities in Lake County, and the School District. This article covers 10+ reasons to vote NO on the referendum and conditions needed to save taxpayers $100-million plus by prohibiting use of bonds to run up government debt. Read more →

Why aren't Florida Consitutional Officers Required to be Transparent about their Budgets?

Feb. 3, 2015 Tavares, FL - Lake County Why aren't Florida Constitutional officers required to be transparent about their budgets and have public budget hearings like the County, School Districts, cities and Hospital District? Florida requires little oversight on elected Constitutional Officers like Tax Collector, Property Appraiser, Sheriff, Elections Superintendent - I have periodically asked that Constitutional Officers be required to have public hearings over their budget details and to post a DETAILED proposed and then approved budget each year. Instead, they have no requirements to do so. As an example, the Lake County Tax Collector has a 2014-2015 budget of $5.5-million, but his website only shows this very vague, one page proposed budget dated Sept., 2014. Why aren't Constitutional officers required to have public hearings, budget workshops, and post DETAILED budgets on their websites like the County and schools do? What is going for software vs facilities vs utilities vs wages vs benefits? We don't know and are never allowed to provide public input. Ask your constitutional officer AND your Florida legislator why they don't do that. http://www.laketax.com/forms/2014-2015_budget.pdf and, the Tax Collector has only ONE page in the 484 page Lake County Budget book HERE (scroll to page 384).... Read more →

SHOCKING - Daily Commercial NOW says the Lake County, FL County Commission Should Review the Budget

Yes, today the Lake County, FL newspaper, the Daily Commercial, had both a front page article AND an "OurVoice" editorial saying NOW the County Board, after raising taxes by almost 14%, should "get serious about your budget". This article contains a review of a newspaper article, an editorial and my specific responses to the points in them. Read more →

Lake County Has New Trash Collection System Starting Monday but the process is botched in my neighborhood - what about your neighborhood?

Oct. 3, 2014 Tavares, FL Update: Oct. 4th - The Daily Commercial had a front page story on this issue, and also obtained quotes that confirmed our prior report's experience (see below) that not all delivered trash carts contained instructions. See their article here. If you live in unincorporated Lake County (not a City), your new trash collection process starts on Monday. If you live in a City with their own trash pickup process, this does not apply to you. In this bulletin: - Lake County Government and/or new vendors may have botched the rollout of new trash pickup services and schedules like they did in my neighborhood. - If you are in unincorporated Lake County and got new trash bins, how to find your new collection schedules and rules if they were NOT attached to your new trash bins. - Rumors about how trash collection fees may go up if a couple of incidents occur. And it seems some of it might be botched up. At least in my neighborhood, we got two new trash bins and NO INSTRUCTIONS or news of different collection schedules. I have not received any mailed instructions either, although a postcard announcing the changes... Read more →

Lake Countians - Your Property Tax will go up 13% Unless you tell Jimmy Conner, Sean Parks, Welton Cadwell & Tim Sullivan NO!

Tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 23, the Lake County Board is taking their final vote to RAISE property taxes by 13%. We provide an overview, a copy of County Commissioner Leslie Campione's plan to avoid the tax hike, and info how you can provide feedback to the four Board members who supported the tax hike in last week's vote. This is the final vote, tomorrow at 5pm. Read more →

Your Lake County Property Taxes may go up 11-18% if you do not take action Tomorrow

Monday, Sept. 8, 2014 | Tavares, FL | by Vance Jochim If you live in Lake County, FL and own a house, commercial or investment property, your property taxes shown on your property "Trim" notice could go up 11-26% due to 1) appraisal values going up 4.2% or more and 2) the Lake County Board approving a budget and tax hike of 11-18% tomorrow afternoon at 5pm (Tuesday). I refer to the County tax increase as the "Jimmie Tax" due to encouragement for it by the Lake County Board Chair, Jimmie Conner. Or you could call it the Conner, Cadwell, Sullivan & Parks tax after the four commissioners who voted for it. (Tim Sullivan since recanted a bit and helped Leslie Campione reduce the pending tax to about 11%.) Below is an overview, our recommendations, and some links to reference documents. If you don't think the tax rate increases listed on the TRIM notice are acceptable, you need to write, call and visit tax authority public hearings to get your point across. There will be other groups who WANT the spending increased, including employees, interest groups and officials and they definitely are calling, writing and attending public hearings. Renters should... Read more →

Another Tax Spender Demand in the Daily Commercial

Once again, the Daily Commercial posted another front page article citing spending WANTS from local County fire officials while not talking to anyone with an alternative, or talking to taxpayers about the merits of adding more people to the staff. Read more →

The Lake County Board will Start the Process to Hike your Property Taxes 18% or MORE tomorrow, unless you tell them your opinion

Tavares, FL - July 21, 2014 Call for Action: If you are concerned about the County raising your property taxes up to 18% or more, you should be at the first approval meeting which is tomorrow, Tuesday, July 22 at 9am. It is the first of three meetings where the Lake County Board of Commissioners start the process to approve property tax millage rates by 18% or MORE. Tomorrow, they will set the maximum millage rate increase which will be on your property tax TRIM notice. The actual millage rate could be set lower at two future meetings. In my opinion, County Chairman Jimmie Conner is requesting all parties to pile on with budget requests to build up a big pot of "needs", then scale it back to maybe 5-8% and look like a hero. So the problem is not only the millage rate, but which services will be funded. So you need to provide input on both. Here are some recent Daily Commercial articles by Livi Stanford on the budget “needs” – notice they mostly talk to officials or staff who want to raise taxes, and rarely talk to taxpayer advocates about reasons to cut costs to match revenues... Read more →

Obama Screws Seniors' Health Coverage - One Person's Experience

A Medicare Advantage Insurance provider, PUP, collapsed this last month and here are all the ramifications based on my experiences. Read more →

Tomorrow, the Lake County Board Should REJECT any Tax Hike to Fund the Sheriff Unless They Require These Conditions

The Lake County FL Board will be discussing tax hikes and budget increases for the Lake County Sheriff. We do not believe that is fiscally sound without the conditions we describe. Read more →

Lake County Parks Staff Plead for more Funding - is it justified?

Tavares, FL May 1, 2014 The Daily Commercial published an article quoting Lake County managers and officials pleading for "mo money" to fund expanded plans for County Recreation facilities. http://www.dailycommercial.com/news/article_565b7c50-2adb-52d0-85f3-3670a2a9a836.html The article left out any balancing information on why they want it, or the possible underlying reason is to justify higher taxes in the upcoming budget year. Here is the comment we posted about the other side of the "need" for more parks funding: As a person who has attended most Lake County Board meetings, I sympathize with the managers & officials pleading for more taxpayer funds. However, the article does not: - Get quotes from people that don't want tax hikes, which is what this is leading to. - Describe the reason for lower tax revenues overall is that the Board waived most residential and commercial impact fees which provide funds for roads and schools. This was done to please the Homebuilder's Assocation and shift tax needs to all taxpayers. This has put pressure on budgets. - Describe the bad habit of the County in constantly buying land without also budgeting for maintenance costs. Thus they get grants or financing deals for land without funding facilities or maintenance as... Read more →

Florida Dept. of Education Budget Blunder costs local School Districts $51-million.

Tavares, FL (Lake County, FL) Monday, Apr. 21, 2014 by Vance Jochim www.FiscalRangers.com Pam Stewart (center), head of the Florida Dept. of Education, should be held accountable for this $51-million budget blunder. School Districts in Florida have been fiscally shafted by the Florida Dept. of Education to the tune of $51-million. (FLDOE). Lake County Schools received a surprise cut in budgeted Florida revenues of $916,000. Note: I will be seeking more information on this, and will post updated to THIS page. Update Apr. 23, 2014 - Orlando's Channel 9 TV reporter Berndt Petersen picked up this story and interviewed me: http://www.wftv.com/videos/news/video-lake-county-schools-wont-get-expected-1m/vCYKrQ/ This story was also published on the national news service, WatchDogWire here: http://watchdogwire.com/florida/2014/04/22/fl-budget-blunder-costs-local-school-districts-51-million/ and on April 24th, it was published in the Daily Commercial: http://www.dailycommercial.com/news/article_465a42d2-2b3e-5e4d-83a0-f875e09cecdd.html#.U1j_pxlp3_o.facebook What did happen? How did Lake County get cut $916,000 and all Florida schools get cut $51-million? Monday night, April 21, 2014, around 5:30 pm, the CFO of the Lake County School District told Lake County School District Board members their CURRENT year budgeted revenues from the State of Florida were being chopped by $916,000 over the next two months, and all 67 Florida School Districts were getting surprise, immediate revenue cuts totaling $51-million.... Read more →

Lake County FL Budget Woes Described, and our Counter Comments

The local Lake County Daily Commercial published an article quoting many officials about low budgets and the possible need for MORE taxes. They did not quote any watchdog groups about alternatives to raising taxes, and we provided some comments they would not publish. Read more →