Fiscal Rangers

Half a Hooray! Lake County School District Provides Workshop Agenda and Supporting Documents Online

The Lake County School District staff has provided supporting documents for "regular" evening Board meetings by using the "Board Docs" link which is on both the Board Members webpage and the District's Homepage HERE. But now, they are posting the agenda and supporting documents for workshops also, starting with today's meeting. Hooray...but wait... You can see today's workshop agenda here:http://www.boarddocs.com/fla/lake/Board.nsf/Public But, after looking at it, there were no supporting documents in the Board Docs for the agenda item 3 for the Budget Update. So, half a hooray for now...because the CFO will tell you to go to HER Finance Page for the draft budget HERE, but she doesn't tell you which section will be discussed in the workshop. When Board Docs includes the FULL package of documentation given to the Board, AND the CFO starts including the documents to be discussed for Finance and Budgets in the specific agenda pages in Board Docs, the District will start getting a full Transparency Hooray for meeting transparency. Not until then. Anyone running for Board member positions should keep this in mind if they want to claim they support transparency of spending issues for taxpayers. vj Read more →

How Lake County School District Could Save Millions

Lake County School District still buys printed, expensive textbooks for kids. And, for those that went to college, or their kids are, you KNOW how expensive those constantly updated textbooks cost. In this age of the internet and very inexpensive laptops, why haven't School District staff moved faster to start using cheap laptops, rather than 5,000 desktop computers, for students to use not only for computer projects, but to read ELECTRONIC versions of textbooks? Why haven't they created incentives to get kids who have laptops bring them to school for use, rather than buying desktops for the schools. Amazon.com now says they sell about 150 electronic books for their Kindle reader for every 100 printed copies. And, they just announced a new Kindle that is under $150. And, you don't even have to have a Kindle to read their books - you can download a version for Windows that works on home or work computers and laptops. And, there are thousands of older books past their copyright date and are in the public domain and FREE from several sources. The entire Tarzan series is available to download for free. There probably are some books used in classes today that are... Read more →

Orlando Sentinel's Lauren Ritchie Uncovers Lake County School District Boondoggle.

If you haven't read it, go HERE and read the article about how the local Lake County School Board staff, apparently without Board knowledge, sent over 80 staff to an EXPENSIVE hotel in Orlando for a conference rather than have them commute each day for a training conference, or rather than booking rooms in much lower cost nearby hotels. I disagree with about half of Ritchie's articles, but this is a true gotcha article and very illuminating. I know at least one Board member is steaming over this. At prior Board meetings I have attended, the Board spent time analyzing travel costs and implemented a number of spending caps, but I think... they missed this type of spending loophole. In my opinion, the Board AND staff have been much better at analyzing and cutting costs than the County Board of Commissioners. So, here are some background stories about government travel vs business travel practices, followed by my conclusion & recommendations about this incident: In the 1970's, I worked for five years as an auditor for the County of Los Angeles. At one time, I was in charge of auditing all County concession agreements, which meant any cafeteria "renting" space in... Read more →

Lake County School Board & Superintendent Announce Improvements in Transparency

About 2-3 weeks ago, I published a commentary about how the School District staff needed to start providing public copies in printed format or online for agenda items at District "workshops", which are usually held at 2 or 3 pm on some Mondays. They already provide good copies online in the "Board Docs" section of the District website for regular Board meeting agenda items (usually held at 6pm on alternating Mondays). But, they had not done the same for the workshops, which was the issue. In many cases, the workshops are where the real work is done, but the public had no access to documents supporting agenda items. At today's Jul. 19, 2010 "Special Meeting" held for the Lake County School District, School Supt. Moxley announced that supporting files for workshops would be posted in the "Board Docs" section of the website like those posted for regular meetings. She also said they are looking into installing wifi in the District conference room so the public and attendees can look up the supporting documents on the website. Additionally, a link to the meeting documents will be featured prominently on the home page of the District website. Additionally, all workshop presenters today... Read more →

Lake School Board turns down property tax vote

Here is some good background below by the Orlando Sentinel's Denise Balona on the School District's history of sales tax requests, and their recent decision by the Board to NOT pursue a possible 1/4 mill (.00025% or about $25 per $100,000 of assessed valuation on property). That was a surprise to me, because I figured the Board would cave to the unions and ask for the tax in order to make up for increased wage costs from the recent wage increases passed by the Board. But, the Board didn't do that, so kudos to them for holding the line on tax requests for this year. This article below also discusses some possible future requests for a sales tax increase in 1-2 years for schools. In my opinion, however, if the property tax valuation drops, then Schools should... live within their means since their constituents have lower income and asset bases. Why should the schools be allowed to continue living at a higher rate than the taxpayers by increasing taxes. If unions demand wage increases in good years, they need to take reductions in bad years. By the way, once again, the quotes below are about possible future maintenance problems with... Read more →

Lake County School Board Needs Policy to Provide Workshop Supporting Documents to Public

Fiscal Rangers Memo: Lake County School District Board Needs Policy to Enforce Transparency over Budget & Other WORKSHOP Presentations. Today, at 2pm, the Lake County School Board will hold a workshop that includes discussions on the upcoming budgets. In contrast to Board “regular” evening meetings where supporting documents are provided several days earlier in the Board Docs section of the website, no such online agenda support documents are provided for workshops. At some earlier workshop meetings, copies of budget update documents were available, but at the last meeting, there were no copies of the budget update documents for the press, public or even political candidates that were in attendance. In contrast, there are some of the County staff leaders who DO bring copies of their presentations to every workshop, which we applaud. However, we noted that by contract, a copy of the Board documents is provided to the Unions, but apparently there is no such policy to provide supporting documents to the public. It seems the Board needs to write a POLICY that the staff consistently make supporting documents from workshops available BOTH on the District website (in the Board Docs section) on the Friday before the meeting, and have... Read more →

Cost of Illegal Immigrants from a California Teacher Working in a Title 1 School

This is close to what I saw when I lived in California until I moved to Florida in 2006. One certain way to identify the impact of this problem in Florida is to require ALL government agencies, including schools, to track actual, additional costs to support illegal immigrants and all the social programs that support them. The costs should be tracked as a separate program, even if it involves multiple funding sources. vjFrom a School Teacher in California: CHEAP TOMATOES 900 teachers just got laid off from the Los Angeles Unified School District . They are $650,000 over their annual budget. The following English teacher helps to explain one area that looms large over California 's educational crisis. I hope each person receiving this mail will read it carefully all the way to the end. It is sad what is happening to our great country all because our politicians are afraid they will miss out on a vote. What a travesty! This English teacher has phrased it the best I've seen yet. This should make everyone think, be you Democrat, Republican or Independent From a California school teacher - - - "As you listen to the news about the student... Read more →

Lake County School Board Tries to Sneak Through 1.5% Wage increase without Public Discussion

Update 2: Board member Larry Metz will "pull" this issue for public discussion. He is also trying to get a better analysis of the cost impact of all the contract changes. He also said that in the case of paying for 50% of the health benefits of employees working 4-6 hours, that is a SAVINGS because the prior policy was to pay 100% (we assume) of their health insurance premiums. It was not clear to me in the contract, and Metz will review for better ways to explain justifications of wage changes like this. vj 5:30pm Monday. Updated: See the review of the new union agreement at the bottom of this document. Original Article posted around 9:45 am today: This is why no one trusts government and their elected officials. The public needs to contact their School Board members and complain about SECRET meetings and attempts to hide the decision results of salary increases by burying it in the agenda. This is not an attack on employees, but rather about the secretive process and lack of transparency for the reasons for the increases given to employees. It could be there are reasonable explanations, but when the Board tries to avoid... Read more →

Outstanding video about New Jersey Teacher's Union Power & Bullying tactics

This Youtube video is being circulated by Tea Party members about the excessive power of Teacher's Unions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ksLlAi3iIc Florida is a right to work state, and I don't know how the NJ situation compares to the two unions in power at the Lake County School District. I do know they participate in closed door sessions with the Board to decide salaries and benefits, and they provide support and funding to local Board members. As a consequence, they got the Lake County School Board in a secret meeting to approve a 1.5% wage increase recently, while the entire county economy is down and most other organizations are laying people off or reducing salaries. The result is that the Teacher's Union locked down a wage increase before the Board had to review and approve next year's budget. Thus that 1.5% increase will result in higher paid, but fewer teachers. BUT, what will really happen is now that fewer funds will exist for the upcoming budget, the Unions will use that "crisis" to demand increases in impact fees and other taxes. If a School Board member VOTES for such taxes, then you know who is really a Democrat and union supporter. Always remember... Read more →

Lake County School District Board's Plan to allow Later Impact Fee Payments Derailed

The Lake County School District plan to delay education impact fees was derailed today. IThe School Board recently voted to allow builders to pay education impact fees at the time when the construction was complete (called the Certificate of Occupancy date or "CO") , rather than when permits were filed. The plan would have let builders wait to pay the average $8,000 or more education impact fee about 6-10 months later in the building process and improve their cash flow. However, that plan was derailed today at the Lake County Impact Committee meeting (which I attended) when the County staff said the administration costs were too high unless ALL impact fee collections were changed to the same method. The School Board representative on the committee, CFO Carol MacLeod said she will take the issue back to the School Board for review. But, it seemed that the County staffer in charge (Angie Thompson) of Impact fee administration did not want to do it, and no one asked for an estimate of the potential cost, thus the issue died. This was clearly an emotional denial of the issue by staff, and they should have responded with a willingness to at least prepare... Read more →

Why Florida & Lake County School Districts & Teachers May Lose LOTS of funding to Rail Systems

Matthew Falconer is running for Orange County Mayor, and his fiscal mind meshes with us here at FiscalRangers.com. Falconer sends out periodic emails on stupid fiscal practices there, and the one below is important. He basically says that the State's plans for Sunrail spending and a number of other rail lines may drastically reduce education funding. It seems the Rail vendors have better lobbyists and State legislators are switching funds to rail that will reduce the pot of funds left for education. The teacher's unions should be going after this issue - they went after SB6 on merit pay, but this may affect them more than any other issue. I would even suggest they closely watch local spending plans for a commuter rail from Orlando to Tavares/Eustis. My experience from California is that rail systems are boondoggles that soak up HORRENDOUS amounts of funds and never payoff. They are corporate welfare for all the firms that subsist on building rail systems and equipment. I don't spend much time on State issues, but Falconer does, so I suggest you get on his mailing list. vj From Matthew Falconer - candidate for Orange County Major: The biggest threat to education and public... Read more →

Today's Lake County School District Workshop Provided Great Details on the Budget Situation

I watched a great presentation at the School Board workshop today on factors affecting future School District budget decisions. Much financial pressure was removed due to Charlie Crist vetoing the Senate Bill 6, which was mostly known for mandating teacher merit pay, but also would have resulted in added District costs of about $13-million. Additionally, the staff and Board member Rosanne Brandeburg developed a new budget status report that clearly laid out all the revenues and expenses and various factors affecting budget planning, such as changing State regulations or revenue source problems. Finally, Harry Fix and the Facilities team provided a new, comprehensive study to rank and track the physical condition (i.e. how old the School Air conditioner is...) and technology environment in every School Building in Lake County. They now have the data to develop a better analysis of where to spend capital budgets and create them. Kudos to the staff and Board for constantly moving into a "data driven" decision making mode, instead of making emotional decisions. vj Read more →

Earthquake Barrow Decides NOT to Run again for Lake County School District Board Member

Barrow was in the Daily Commercial recently, describing the nearby earthquake in Mexico because she was on vacation in San Diego. After being on the Lake County School Board for four years, she issued a notice that she does not intend to run for office again. Here is her message, sent out... today, Friday, Apr. 9 at about 12:30 pm. Her email is [email protected] . You can visit the County Elections department to see a list of ALL current candidates for Lake County elected positions HERE. vj Agenda for 4/12/10 Lake County Schools This message is from Cindy Barrow, Lake County School Board Member, District 3. This is not an official communication from the Lake County School Board. This message contains my thoughts and opinions and is not reflective of other board members thoughts or opinions. I am responsible for the contents of this message. Dear Citizens: As you know, I am committed to supporting and continuously improving public education for our children. I have enjoyed my position and the ability to affect change. However, today I am announcing my decision not to seek re-election. I am committed to putting my full and best effort into the remainder of my... Read more →

Illegal Immigrants: Many Florida Employers Use E-Verify to Detect them & Our Recommendations

One way to reduce illegal immigration is to remove the situations that entice them to Florida, such as employment. Thus, if employers do more work to identify illegal immigrants during the employment application process, fewer will be able to find work. So, the next things to do in Lake County to reduce attractions for illegal immigrants are: - Determine if contractors and employers in Lake County are using E-verify, and - Verify that local city, County, & School District government hiring and service contracts require that primary contractors as well as sub-contractors use E-verify to prevent hiring illegals, and - Ensure that employers and government agencies establish oversight functions to ENSURE that the E-verify requirements are met. This would include strong contract administration procedures, human resources procedures and internal audits. For instance, right now, the County Board has NO PLANS to have the new Judicial Center audited by internal auditors, so this will not be done. Hopefully, using E-verify and other actions will reduce inbound migration of illegal immigrants who take jobs from your kids, friend and relatives. We will help improve the hiring prospects for local CITIZENS by following up and examining government contracts for the necessary E-verify requirements,... Read more →

Lake County School Board Decides to Delay (not Defer) Education Impact Fees, and Bad Budget News

The Lake County, Florida School Board decided at today's 2pm workshop to recommend that the County Board of Commissioners change an ordnance so that the collection date for education impact fees on NEW construction (residential or commercial - does not affect existing buildings or homes) would be changed from the date of permit to the date when the builder received a "CO" or Certificate of occupancy. Generally, it takes 6-9 months to build a house, and longer for buildings, so the effect is to delay the fee to the date when the building is complete and is ready for occupancy. (Note - the graphic is from the City of Lincoln Nebraska, which DOES have a clear explanation of Impact fees...) The one time estimated cash flow effect of the decision on the School district funding would currently be about $3-4.5 million. That is because our estimate of impact fees to be received for this year, based upon trend data provided by the School district staff, is about $6-million (way down from prior years). This proposal, initiated by School Board member Larry Metz, appeared to be a compromise from the original requested action from the County Board, which was to meet... Read more →

National Legal & Policy Center Tracks SEIU & Other Union Corruption Cases

We periodically read about union leaders running amok and stealing union funds or committing other transgressions. In 2009 and earlier, many unions like SEIU were found to be affiliated with ACORN. And, here is an organization, the National Legal & Policy Center, that TRACKS union corruption and crimes. Below is a link just to a search on the SEIU union, which is a national union, but they are the union for non-instructional workers at Lake County School Systems. The search report lists the pages and pages of listings of crimes committed by SEIU members across the country. No corporation would have such a track record among their branches or stores, but it seems the SEIU tolerates these antics and doesn't implement stronger policies and procedures to keep the crooks out. I don't have any evidence of wrongdoing in the local SEIU at the Lake County School District, but if I was a Lake County member of SEIU, would I be comfortable providing my support and dues to a national union with the constant problems listed at the link below? (or just go to www.nlpc.org and find the reports and search on SEIU ) http://www.nlpc.org/category/keywords/service-employees-international-union-seiu vj Read more →

Lake County School Board Member Larry Metz Responds to Biased Attack by Right Side of the Lake blog

FiscalRangers.com Central - Lake County, FL - Friday, March 12, 2010 by Vance Jochim Whooo boy, politics in Lake County are fun. This is an issue you won't find in the local papers - they rarely cover the juicy stuff. So, the "Right Side of the Lake" blog supported by Romac Lumber, sour orange and rotten orange lovers, many builders and written by Romac VP Don Magruder attacked incumbent Lake County School Board member Larry Metz (Republican) for nominating another Board member, and known Democrat, Cindy Barrow, to be Chairperson of the Board this year. That actually happened the end of last year, and since I attend most Board meetings, she has run the meetings fine without any liberal takeover. Since the School District Board member positions are "NON-partisan", this rarely is an issue on the School Board. And, since Barrow was already Vice Chair, it is normal, and courteous to nominate the Vice Chair to the Chair position the following year. As Larry explains below, Barrow was the most logical choice for the next Chairperson of this NON-partisan Board. Although some information about Barrow's liberal interests may be correct in the Blog's article, much of it is all outside... Read more →

Lake County School Board Impact Fee Decision Coming Up on Monday & As well as Our White Paper later

Lake County, FL - Tavares - Friday, March 12, 2010 - by Vance Jochim Last week on Monday, the School Board held a workshop where they discussed a request from the County Board of Commissioners (BCC) to defer 50% or more of education impact fees for 1-5 years. There was a presentation by the Director of Growth Planning, Harry Fix, and the Board asked for more information before they scheduled a joint meeting with the BCC. Currently, the handout from Harry Fix is not on the District's website, but I assume there will be one posted with added clarifications and facts after Monday's meeting. I was at the meeting, and have written a long overview of the issue, but I am holding it until after Monday's Special Board meeting at 2pm on Monday, the 15th. Once I see the added facts and get a few answers, I will post my article on this blog. It is already several pages long and is really like a white paper on School Impact fees, and covers viewpoints from several angles, including the builder's anger at the fee, and the current constraints the school board faces. There is no such overview on the website,... Read more →

Middle School Reading Video Musical on You Tube Motivates Kids to Read

Tavares, FL - All the time, I "read" stories on the internet about the reduction in reading by kids and young people. They rely more and more on getting current events information from TV, or internet videos. So, it was good to see today's Orlando Sentinel front page article on how Ocoee Middle School in Orange County (FL) created a 5 minute music video dedicated to reading. The video actually came out last December (see WESH-2 video story below), but then Oprah heard about the video and went to the school to film a segment, leading to the story in the Orlando Sentinel which is HERE. So, HERE is the actual 5 minute video on You Tube.Here is the WESH-2 story on the Reading video HERE. So, play the catchy 5 minute video and start reading more. If you know a school kid, have them watch the video. We have to get them hooked on reading blogs! vj Read more →

Florida and 14 Other States Selected in "First Cut" for Obama Administration's Education Race to the Top Funding

Updated Monday morning to include Orlando Sentinel link This is just a bulletin about this breaking news as of Midnight, Thursday, March 4. California was skipped from consideration for Obama's "Race to the Top" Education funding competition, but Florida and 14 other states, plus Washington DC were selected. This is the first round of selections, and interestingly, almost all the states selected are on the east coast, according to a map in the Orlando Sentinel this morning. But, don't be surprised if there is some frantic lobbying, and maybe other states are added to the finalist list. The Orlando Sentinel article is HERE, so read it or the other articles below for details. Now, the next step is for Federal grant reviewers to listen to representatives from each finalist state. Florida's proposal includes moving teachers more to merit pay and away from pay by seniority, which will be controversial among the teacher unions. But, this is also supported by Obama, so we might actually see it in our lifetimes. If Florida does end up being a winner, then we have to know whether Lake County's School District automatically shares in the pot or whether Lake County must compete to be... Read more →

Results of Today's Lake County School District Workshop from 2-5pm

I don't normally cover general topics, but today's workshop was rather good, and interesting, so I thought I would share what I heard - this is from my notes, and unlike your professional journalists (who were not there), I don't confirm facts, that I think I heard, so I might be wrong somewhere... Later tonight is the formal Board meeting, and I will post that info later this week... You can always go to the School District website and see the agendas for the workshops, normally held on some Mondays at 2pm, and the Monday evening board meetings HERE. To see the meeting agendas, click on the "Calendar" link and then click on the meeting links to see the agenda. However, they now have a new feature of the website called "Board Docs", which is much better. Go to the same Board member page above and click "Board Docs" and you then select "Public" to see the public agendas and SUPPORTING documents for each agenda line item. As of today, there is a glitch, and that link doesn't work, but it should soon. You can always use the shortcut link I found which is HERE. So, the agenda for the... Read more →

Chicago Corruption Again - Charter School head facing prison for $250,000 Embezzlement using School Credit Cards

Is this country great, or what? We can always rely on the Chicago area to give us lessons in what NOT to do in Florida if you are a government administrator. Read below and learn, grasshopper... By the way, the Lake County School District recently had all the local charter schools audited, and they do monitor them, so I think they already know how to prevent this situation... apparently OUR Lake County School District administrators would rather spend the money teaching kids instead of funding Louis Vuitton purses. (:-)) vj School's money spent on Coach bags, diet pills February 17, 2010 - from Chicago SunTimes HERE The onetime head of a Chicago charter school is now facing prison time after she dipped into school funds to buy Louis Vuitton and Coach bags, $2,000 in hair care products and hundreds of dollars in diet pills. Helen Hawkins, who formerly headed Triumphant Charter school on the city's South Side, was found guilty of embezzlement Friday after a brief trial in federal court. Hawkins was accused of using the school's American Express credit card for personal use in 2004, but prosecutors introduced evidence of similar conduct in 2003, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel Hammerman... Read more →

Why Don't the Chambers of Commerce Host Panels of Elected Officials to Answer Questions from the Public?

Here is an idea for an event that each of the local Lake County chambers could hold. It is an open meeting hosted by the Chambers to have the public ask direct questions of elected officials (as opposed to candidates). Right now, there is nothing like this in Lake County, but the one below is held by the Chamber of Commerce in Fountain Valley, CA where I used to live. They do it just for State and Federal officials, but I think the local one should include elected officials from County Government, the School Board and local cities. So what if it goes 3 hours - I think they would get a big crowd. Since Welton Cadwell hardly ever lets the public provide public input at County Commissioner meetings, maybe this type of meeting may provide an alternate version of transparency. How about it, Chambers? OR, what about the TEA Party or the local Republican Executive Committee (they are planning several for current candidates, but not incumbents who are not up for re-election) vj In the Local section of the OC Register, in the “Our Towns – Central” column, you find the following announcement. This is a fun annual event.... Read more →

School System to get $12-million in Federal funds over 5 years...

Oh, I bet you thought I was talking about Lake County, didn't you? Well, sorry, but if you think Federal spending is out of whack, below is the article how the US Foreign Aid agency, USAID, will be spending $12-million on public schools in JAMAICA (population 2.6 million - or about the size of the Orlando metro area), NOT the US. And that is just to improve the "numeracy and literacy capacity of grades ont to three...". Additionally, "USAID is also looking at rehabilitating the thousands of secondary school leavers who are not outfitted with the requisite skills to fill vacancies in the job market." Meanwhile, the same news website said a Brit was caught on an outbound plane with 74 pounds of "ganja" And, remember, USAID is running these types of programs worldwide, besides reconstruction programs in Iraq and Afghanistan (which I write about in my other blog). So, read below if you support efforts by the local Lake County schools to get some Federal funds. Maybe if we secede from the US and declare ourselves a separate country, we can clean up on Federal dollars like the old movie, "The Mouse that Roared"! Also note that sixth graders... Read more →

Lake County School District Wages Increased for Teacher Union members

I am posting this without comments until I can return to provide analysis. See article at link below. vj Lake union chief: 'The best agreement we can get this year' Many teachers looking at several hundred dollars more in pay By Denise-Marie Balona, Orlando Sentinel HERE 10:46 p.m. EST, January 16, 2010 Many Lake County teachers would receive an increase of several hundred dollars this year under a tentative agreement reached recently by the teachers union and the school district. About three dozen fortunate enough to be in a certain stage of their careers would receive as much as $4,800. But everyone would get another year of free health-insurance benefits — a value of about $474 a month for full-time employees, said B. Grassel, president of the Lake County Education Association. Many Florida school districts pass on at least some of the cost of health-insurance premiums to their employees. Lake has covered this expense for years. Though teachers would like more money in their pockets, Grassel said the district couldn't commit to spending more for salaries when its financial future is so uncertain. The state Department of Education recently cut per-pupil funding again because it underestimated enrollment statewide this academic... Read more →

Notes from Ralph Smith's Lake County Radio Show today - Jan 20 - Mt. Dora Pension Issues & Leesburg Veteran's Memorial

Tavares/Eustis, Florida - Wed., Jan. 20, 2010: Ralphs local show in on AM790 WLBE each Wed at 11am to noon, and he covers mostly conservative political issues. The current website for WLBE, which also provides online recordings of shows, is at www.WLBE.org . Todays show: Guests are from Mt. Dora City Commission and from the Leesburg Veteran's Memorial - Great news - the Republican won the Senate seat race in Massachusetts to replace Edward Kennedy, which changes the ratio of Dems to Republicans in the Senate from 60 / 40 to 59 / 41, which eliminates the ability of the Dems to ram laws through the Senate without involving any Republicans in the issue. First Half Hour - Guest was Mt. Dora Councilman Jim Eppich Note: If you are concerned about excessive government spending, I recommend you listen to the first 20 minutes of this show by going to the AM790 WLBE website "past shows" and listening to the recording for Jan. 20 at 11am. AT THIS WLBE website (which does NOT show up in Google searches). - Ralph introduced Mount Dora Councilman Jim Eppich who won in a tightly contested race. He is a CPA and former CFO of... Read more →

Important Lake County Board and School Board Actions This week and our Comments

I will add more details later, but here is an overview of what happened at the Board meetings on Monday and Tuesday: School Board Issues - The School Board decided to go ahead with an application for the "Race to the Top" Federal Grant. It was controversial because the Board would have to sign an agreement that lacked a lot of specifics, and they were worried they would be tied down to future, unspecified actions when the agreement did specify sanctions if they did not go through with the program. Basically, this was a POORLY written agreement from the State to file an application to be part of a Florida State application competing against other states to get some of the available funds, which are significant. I was not at the Monday night meeting, but was at an earlier workshop where all the background was discussed. Below my comments is a memo from Board member Cindy Barrow that describes the decision and the Board went ahead and signed the agreement. Another controversial point is that the program requires merit pay or bonuses for teachers and most teacher unions fight that. However, I have been reading over the last year that... Read more →

Example of County being Audited by Feds for Proper Grant Documentation

This is an example of what the Federal government can audit in a local County program that received Federal funds. This illustrates why Lake County government leaders need to make sure proper controls are used in documenting state and Federal program spending. In the case described in the article below, the Federal Government auditors will audit a $10-million FEMA grant received by a local Missouri County in 2007 to make repairs during an ice storm. It seems this may be a routine audit, since no information was provided of possible wrongdoing. Notice at the end they hired a "debri removal" firm that knew FEMA documentation rules, which was wise. Hopefully, Lake County government managers are doing the same for Federally funded programs and grants. If they don't, and the documentation is not adequate, they would be forced to repay the funds. vj January 1, 2010 Federal agency to audit Greene County's ice storm funds Wes Johnson From the Springfield, Missouri News-Leader HERE The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will conduct a weeklong audit of Greene County this month over $10.2 million in FEMA money the county received after the 2007 ice storm. Although the City of Springfield and City Utilities... Read more →

Drastic Hikes in Florida Unemployment Insurance Start January 1, Reducing Funds for Other Agencies

Most Florida businesses will get an unexpected hike in employee unemployment insurance taxes starting January 1, 2010. This problem will cascade into another fight for the total remaining Florida tax revenues, thus reducing the remaining funds for other agencies, including Schools, etc. (and, remember, Charlie Crist just approved the $600-million SunRail system, which will also compete for funds. Additionally,if Obama's health plan passes, it mandates drastic hikes in Medicaid payments for Florida and other states that have low Medicaid payments, thus that will "suck" more funds out of Florida State cash). Below is a briefing sent out by the Eustis Chamber of Commerce that gives a good description of the tax hike, which significantly increases bottom line costs for each employee. If you are business owner, you need to know about this tax, and perhaps take the actions requested by the Chamber. If you are an employee, you need to understand how the State has used up their unemployment insurance fund to pay unemployment insurance, and has been borrowing $300-million per MONTH from the Federal government to continue paying unemployment payments. The tax hike means that your employer's cost will go up, which means that there will be another reason... Read more →

Innovative Approach to Property Tax Impact Fees Should be Studied by Lake County

Thanks go to Marilyn Bainter who sent me the link to this article, and the new impact fee method described sounds creative and very logical! Apparently in Hernando County (FL), real estate developers have loaded the County Commission with supporters who then cut impact fees in half, without any real discussion on where funds for schools, roads, etc, would come from in the future. But,. the Columnist also discusses another County, Charlotte County, where they came up with a creative approach by setting sliding impact fees based upon the DISTANCE from existing facilities. They had already tried drastic reductions of impact fees and "it didn't work" (no reason supplied). Thus the impact fee might be half off if a new house was built within 2 miles (no bus requred by the State) of an existing school. But, if a new housing tract was built far away from existing schools AND roads, then fees were much higher to reflect the cost of building infrastructure and schools to support the new tract. I think that is very innovative, and also supports the Lake County type of development plan where land zoning is being setup in clusters so that we don't have sprawl.... Read more →

Spend $700-Million Florida Tax Dollars on a Train, or on Education?

Ok, so Matt Falconer is running for Orange County Mayor, and this blog is for Lake County. BUT, Matt Falconer has a good point in his email that is below. If Sunrail is passed due to the heavy lobbying, there will definitely be less funds left for education. The website Centralfloridapolitics.com says that “SunRail would cost $1.2billion, with $500 million or more possibly coming from the federal government. The first 31 miles, from south Volusia County to Sand Lake Road in Orange, could be up and running in 2012, with the remainder in 2014.” That means about $700-million would come from Florida taxpayers. I agree with Falconer on the costs for rail. In California and Los Angeles, they pushed through laws to build rail lines and they were a huge cost per rider. I support big business, but not in this situation of corporate welfare, if Falconer’s info on CSX is accurate. And, any talk of this project generating jobs should consider that if the funds are spent elsewhere, like Education, they will still create or save jobs, so I consider it an even wash. The issue would be whether the funds go for LAND, and also railroad building work,... Read more →

New FiscalRangers.com Page on Lake County, Florida's 2010 Elections

Tavares, FL - The 2010 Lake County, Florida State and Federal Election cycle is ramping up, so I created a separate page to track the incumbents, candidates, issues and media sources. It is titled "Elections 2010 for Lake County, FL" and is in the "Pages" section in the right hand column, or you can reach it with THIS LINK. I will be adding details on the candidates as it comes, and will later rank the candidates and make recommendations regarding their support of fiscal conservatism and initiatives they have taken to improve efficiency, economy and effectiveness of government operations. I plan to create a vetting process with interviews to also extract background on fiscal skills of incumbents and candidates. A candidate who does not even know how the budget works for the agency they are running for will receive an F. Vance Jochim Chief Fiscal Watchdog... [email protected] Read more →

Lake County FL School Board Votes down proposed .25 mil Property Tax hike

I attended this evening's Board meeting at the Lake County Commission chambers at 5pm, and about 1/3 of the seats were filled. The Board was voting on whether to increase property taxes by .25 mil (1/4 of a mil) to offset the reductions to their capital expense budget enacted by the Florida legislators. Thus, although the state taxpayers once voted legislation to collect sales tax of (I may be wrong on this - send corrections) to go to local school boards, this is the second year where the legislators skimmed .25 mil and would not pass it on to the schools. Thus, instead of getting the equivalent of 2 mils for schools, they now get 1.5 mils. But the legislature said the School Boards could vote to hike local property taxes by .25 mil (which is about $25 on each $100,000 of property valuation) to recapture the funds siphoned off by the State. This made the School Boards look like bad guys in raising taxes just to get back to where they were before. Tonight, the Lake County School Board voted 3 to 2 NOT to increase the tax. Voting to increase the tax were Cindy Barrow and Debbi Stivender.... Read more →

Text of President Obama's Speech to School Children Released & Revised Lake County Schools Policy

The controversial (or assumed to be controversial) speech text that will be broadcast to schools that accept it tomorrow, Sept. 8, has been posted on the White House website at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/ Additionally, School Board member Cindy Barrow distributed a "clarification" of a previously posted policy memo from the Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Susan Moxley. This is not surprising because now they could review what Obama was planning to say. In our opinion, neither supporters or non-supporters of Obama should find this revised policy to be unreasonable. Here is the revised policy distributed by Barrow Monday night (Sept 7 - it was text in a Word document and did not contain a letterhead or signature, but we assume it was correct). vj =========================================== On September 8, 2009 at 12:00 noon , the President of the United States of America will deliver a speech to America ’s students welcoming them back to school. Many schools across the nation will just be starting the school year on this date even though we have been in school for several weeks. The transcript of the speech is available at www.whitehouse.gov. The President’s speech will stress the importance of education, taking responsibility for your own education,... Read more →

Update on Lake County School Board Issue of Allowing Obama video in Schools

Update 3pm Sept 4, 2009: I reversed the order of the two issues below, expanded some comments, AND added the email memo from School District Supt. Moxley regarding the Obama video. Two Issues discussed at this morning's Board meeting on budgets: 1. Obama's Scheduled Sept 8 video in classrooms: The Board at the budget workshop also discussed this morning the current emotional issue of allowing President Obama's scheduled video for school children to presented live in classes via internet on Sept. 8th. One member really felt the video should be presented (Cindy Barrow) and others were more reserved. However, the decision of the Superintendent and the Board wasn't based upon wild, partisan emotion, but upon existing School Board policy 9.70. And, after the discussion, Supt. Moxley issued an email explaining the decision, which is at the BOTTOM of this document. The various reasons stated to follow the policy were: - The schools are encouraged to cooperate with State or Federal education programs like this, BUT the purpose for the Sept. 8th Obama video is not a national crisis, and in such cases, the policy says planned classroom schedules should not be interrupted with such programs. They have used this policy... Read more →

Federal BLS Publishes Employee Benefits Statistics

The Federal Bureau of Labor & Statistics published their new stats on employee benefits, which provides the ability to compare corporate employee benefit levels with government employee benefits. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/ebs2_07282009.htm I will post an analysis here a little later this week, but it clearly shows that government employees have a much higher percent of employee benefit costs paid by their government employee than private firms do for their employees. It also shows that most government employees get close to 100% of the benefits paid vs maybe 70-80% by private employees. The next thing for us to do is get the actual figures for the Lake County School District and the Lake County government employees and compare their benefits and contribution levels to the above national statistics. vj Read more →

Lake County School Board Votes to Hike Property Tax $25 per $1000 Valuation - 4 to 1

Note: If I misstated some facts here, please notify me directly at [email protected] or submit a comment and I will correct the information if credible. July 28, 2009 - Tavares, FL - Last night the Lake County School Board voted unofficially 4 to 1 to hike property taxes by .25 mills to pay for capital spending and maintenance programs. This was NOT a final vote, but a preliminary vote, and the formal, final vote will be at a Board meeting on Sept. 8th. The issue, covered by newspaper articles at both the Daily Commercial and the Orlando Sentinel, was that the State legislature dumped on all School Districts by changing the allocations for a "2 mill" tax normally received by all Florida School Districts, but restricted to capital and maintenance spending. Thus, it can't be used for teachers or programs. A "mill" represents 1% of property values, thus a 2 mill tax would be $2 for every $100 in property values (residential or business). Or, it is $20 per $100,000 in property values subject to tax. Thus if you have a house with a taxable property value of $300,000, your annual tax of 2 mills would be $60. This tax... Read more →

Comments Regarding Demands for Local Government Salary Increases

The local blog, Right Side of the Lake just published a complaint about the Lake County staff getting $1000 bonuses. In their article, former School Board member (and new County Commissioner) Jimmy Conner was quoted that there were no pay increases at the School District last year. However, the Board approved a 17% hike in health benefits without questioning ways to modify it, which I was told computed into a 2% total increase in the wage and benefit package for all employees. No corporation I ever worked at would pay such increases. They would reduce benefits, or pass costs on to employees as increased co-pays. I am also sure there were automatic step increases in many paychecks. Step increases are based upon tables for every position, and provide automatic, annual salary increases of 2% or more. No corporation uses step increases. This year the School Board was also looking at a 12% hike for health benefits, but they ARE considering a move to a self insured program, and they should be looking at going direct with their provider and not paying fees to the broker in Leesburg. Most private firms would be handling their own administration tasks regarding health insurance,... Read more →

Comparing Lake County School Funding Between State & Local Sources

I just added this to the separate page on "statistics". Today the Orlando Sentinel published a lengthy article by Aaron Deslatte about problems funding the local school districts and efforts by teachers etc. to get an increase in sales tax to fund the schools. As of 1:30 pm, there are almost 70 comments posted to the newspaper website on the article, and some are very good. i have yet to see adequate analysis to support the need to raise sales taxes. Until I see sound, objective analysis of funding sources over several years, with both the total collections and the portions going to Lake Schools (and all schools), I tend to think that there was a big runup in school income from fast rising property valueations and resulting taxes, and schools overspent on construction, etc. without monitoring any type of historic baseline of growth in the economy. Thus, it is like building excess fire stations or schools, and thinking existing revenue will always fund the staffing and maintenance, but then taxes drop and funds drop to a historic level, not a "excess profit level". Remember when the oil companies back in the 1970's raked in profits due to increased oil... Read more →

Lake School District Board Needs to Control Excessive Health Benefit Costs in Economic Downturn

The March 8th article below describes the upcoming decision by the Lake County School Board to establish budget priorities, and it seems they may not move to control excess increases (my opinion) in health insurance costs. Last year, the staff ran a 17% increase in health insurance costs by the Board, which approved it. At a recent meeting, staff said this year costs would be up 12%. Employees do, however, pay quite a bit for family health coverage, so we are just talking here about the health insurance coverage over actual employees. At a Board meeting tonight, the Board approved a long overdue negotiation with the health insurance broker to move to a self funded health insurance program, which should save them up to $2.5-million according the article below. The Lake County government already has a self funded program. Although the Board has been acting to control various cost centers, this is not one of them. No business I ever worked at would have approved an increase much more than for cost of living, and approving 17% or 12% increases is ludicrous. The suggested cost increases could be considered to be the result of employees not controlling their demands on... Read more →

Issues for Lake County School Board Cost Containment for Budgets & Employee Benefits

Issues for Lake County School Board Workshop on Budgets & Employee Benefits By Vance Jochim – www.FiscalRangers.com Feb. 16, 2pm (this document posted on FiscalRangers.com on this date) Today’s Lake County School District workshop is on budget status, and will be followed by a closed meeting for “collective bargaining” with the unions. Thus I wrote this paper as a guideline on how to improve the cost containment methods used by the Board to control taxpayer funded spending. The Concept of Conditionalities Conditionality, as defined in a recent Federal oversight hearing, refers to the practice of the government agency establishing conditions for one party to meet in order to receive benefits or payments. Conditions are also referred to as tradeoffs in any type of negotiation or contract. Examples of GOOD enforcement of Conditionality practices include: The UN establishing specific improvements in anti-corruption practices by an African country in order to receive foreign aid. When the country did NOT implement the required changes, further funding was cutoff for a construction project until improvements were implemented. A parent requiring that a teenager do specific chores in order to use the family car. No chores, no car. POOR Conditionality Practices NOT establishing any conditions... Read more →

Local Governments Need to Know Objective Economic Data before Spending Decisions

Today, let's talk about economic data and reports and their importance even to elected government officials in Lake County. The Orlando Sentinel's "CFB" Business section is issuing their economic forecast info in tomorrow's edition. But, it probably is based on the UCF report we talk about further down. When I go to Lake School District meetings or read reports, it is extremely rare to see any economic data provided to the Board as part of the data used in evaluating budget or spending decisions. Use of such data is COMMON in the corporate world. For example, a division wants to justify the building of a new plant, and they may show rising house sales as a reason, when an economist's research indicates there is no underlying population increase, thus the increased sales is due to speculation which will result in a collapse in housing prices in the future. True story - no, not central Florida, but Juneau, Alaska which suffered a major housing recession after the collapse of speculation in the 1970's. The company economist correctly forecast the downturn and the company avoided building a plant where sales would have collapsed. (Perhaps Romac should hire an economist here in Lake... Read more →

We Review the Florida State Auditor General "Operational" Audit Report on Lake County School District

The Florida State AG conducts an "Operational"audit report of Florida local government agencies about every 3 years. They just issued a new audit report on the Lake County School District, Report number 2009-067, which was briefly described in the Orlando Sentinel today. You can find the audit report HERE - just look up "Lake" County and download the report. You should know there are several types of audits. Financial audits are usually conducted by CPA's to verify the correct presentation of financial reports. LCSD's annual CAFR ( Comprehensive Annual Financial Report) is audited by external auditors each year. There are also compliance or regulatory audits. For instance, the LCSD District Auditor supervises the audit of school accounts which is now conducted by internal staff (it was conducted by the outside auditors, RSM, in the past). Operational audits, defined by the Institute of Internal Auditors, focus on evaluating efficiency, economy and effectiveness. That is my background, and it is not unusual to find cost savings of $1-million in some audits. Last year the School Board's District Auditor investigated the TAP program and found overspending of $500,000+. Another operational audit found salary overpayments over $500,000. However, the AG calls their audits "Operational",... Read more →

Outgoing Anna Cowin 2008 Wrap Up Report & Excuse of the Week

Well, Anna Cowin is no longer the Superintendent of the Lake County School District. So, the Daily Commercial reporter, David Donald, who attended many of the School District meetings wrote a 2008 year end recap of issues and friction involving her and the School Board. So, I include it here for posterity, since articles in 2006 about her disputes with the Board got me to start attending the meetings and writing this blog. One thing is for sure, now the new Board cannot blame mismanagement on Cowin any longer, since the prior Board switched (after voters approved it) to an appointed Superintendent. So, now voters should start asking the Board and staff to explain why there aren't any meetings or reports that clearly show how efficient, effective and economical the District is in operations. For instance, are they using standard cost accounting to measure and track labor or capital efficiencies. And, do they compare their actual tracking cost ratios to other similar Districts both IN and OUT of Florida. And finally, is there a constant downtrend in costs per unit like a business would show? PS: The last sentence in the article below describes an exuse from Anna Cowing that... Read more →

School District Residency Fraud Can Soak up Local Tax Dollars

Each student registering in a school should be a resident from the local School District taxing region. If they lie about where they live to attend the school, the school's local area taxpayers are paying for the student while the student's real residential school district collects their percent of "local taxes" but does not incur the teaching, busing and other related expenses. Does that happen in the Lake County School District? We don't know, but here is a good article on the issue from the Detroit Free Press, and the one example below shows that about 200 of a 3000 student body, or about 7%, are fraudulent residents that are actually caught and sent back to their own school districts. Favorite quote: Southfield (School District in Michigan), which has two staffers handling residency investigations, removes up to 200 students every year after checking the status of the 3,000-some students living in apartments and any others suspected of attending school fraudulently, officials said. vj from the Detroit Free Press Ethics, taxes, education at issue as schools weed out residency fraud BY GINA DAMRON FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER In a morning routine familiar to most teens, the 17-year-old from Westland wakes up... Read more →

Orlando Sentinel Publishes Article of Pending School Board Fiscal Issues BEFORE the decision is made

Today, Orlando Sentinel reporter Denise-Marie Balona wrote an article in the Lake section on the School Board where she described several issues coming up for a Board vote tonight at the 6pm Board meeting in the County Administration Building. This is rare to have a reporter describe several Board package decision issues BEFORE the Board decision, rather than afterwards. I suggest you visit the link to see the article, then read my email to Denise which I sent also to the Board and other members. Because it is quite hard for the public to get access to the Board decision "package", I added some comments about needed transparency. If Balona had not written the article, the Board could have voted to sell a School building for 1/8th of what the appraisal price is. I have no idea why the staff thought it appropriate to put the prospective buyer on the agenda without first discussing a general proposal for competitive bidding at a lower price. In the Cowin days, this item could have been buried on the consent agenda and may have escaped Board analysis. Now, it is possible some work was done to justify the proposal by the staff, but... Read more →

Lake Schools Supt. Moxley Selects two Assistant Supers & Our Tips for Them

Well, the new Lake County Appointed School Superintendent Dr. Susan Moxley announced the first members of her new "team" by selecting two experienced high School teachers, Nancy Velez & Aurelia Cole. I have seen both at earlier Board workshops, and Velez gave a VERY good presentation on the methods they used to improve grades and retention at her High school. Matter of fact, Velez's presentation was at the executive level that has been missing in the School District. She actually used the computer projector and gave an organized, factual presentation that was rarely ever seen by the Board. In some earlier discussions during the recent election period, I had mentioned Velez's presentation quality as a model of what should exist in Board meetings. In contrast, outgoing Pat Nave rarely provided any leadership or improvement in reporting to the Board, and many times presentations of her subordinates were unorganized and lacking supporting data. Nave should have never let her staff give half the presentations or budget spending "justifications" because they were so unorganized or incomplete. Although Velez talked about education issues when I saw her, that is the type of presentation the Board should have been getting on fiscal management and... Read more →

White Paper on Sound Government Budgeting Principles Explains Another LCSD Fiscal Weakness

Below, at the link, is an old 1995 white paper on sound STATE government budgeting principles published by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Although it is focused on State Government budgeting systems, it provides a GOOD understanding of the difference budget methods used by government, such as line item vs performance budgeting. Well, guess what... Lake County School District and County Government use the outmoded line item budget systems which the article says focuses NOT on program outcomes and effectiveness, but they focus on what you paid for. So, this is a large, reference source, but that one issue describes another weakness in the budget method used by LCSD. By not providing performance indicators or "outcome" measurements of programs or departments, the current line item budget system prevents analysis of whether a department or program is EFFECTIVE. Instead, the budget reports only explain whether the department has under or overspent the line item budget amount. Gee, imagine if someone in Lake County read this report in 1995 and actually converted the old line item budget method to the more results oriented performance budgeting model? Favorite Quotes: 1) Massachusetts Governor Weld submitted his budget proposals for fiscal year 1994 in... Read more →

Lake County Teacher Complains About English-only Rule

A teacher in Lake County apparently filed a complaint that she was demoted after complaining that she was requested to stop speaking Spanish in schools. See the article at the link below for full details. This is the type of endless complaint that I saw when living in Southern California. Only there, they probably had 50 different languages spoken in the SoCal schools, and the liberal courts always backed up the second language proponents. From a Fiscal standpoint, the expectation by some to speak or be TAUGHT in their non-english native language raises the costs of education and reduces funds available for citizen children. The lawyers make the money while activists demand that their non-english speaking students be subsidized with teachers who know their language. This is a really good reason to have an English only law. It is my understanding that students were supposed to be taught in English only, but pressure increased to bring in ESOL (English as a Second Language) teachers who know the other language and "assisted" students in their native language. But, this has morphed into teaching the students in their own language, continuing a reliance on non-english for communication. So, the FiscalRangers thing for... Read more →

Comparing Budget Process Quality for St. Paul, MN to Lake County School District

After attending all the budget workshops for the Lake County (FL) School District (LCSD) this past year, I have started searching for better examples of budget formats, transparency procedures & budget management reports used by other government agencies. The LCSD system of budget approvals is a mess, and mostly the fault of all the prior administrations, including the outgoing elected Supt., Anna Cowin, and her staff, who use a haphazard system, don't provide complete info to the Board, and do not make it easy for the public to follow the discussions. Additionally, the budget reports use "ancient" regulatory formats that are not easy for any reader to understand. So, I went through the 400+ page LCSD annual detailed budget (that cost me $56) and compared it to St. Paul's budget reports. Here is a look at what the City of St. Paul, MN does just to make it much easier for the elected officials and taxpayers, including much improved budget reports, processes to get meeting notifications and see budget hearing agendas and VIDEOS. LCSD has a total budget of over $650-million, and 5000 employees. St. Paul has a SMALLER budget and under 3000 employees, but provides significantly better budget formats... Read more →