Fiscal Rangers

Center for Immigration Studies issues Illegal Immigration Study issued

Here is a recent column with some sobering statistics and examples of the costs of illegal immigration to all taxpaying citizens. I will try to later add some Lake County data relevant to how illegal immigration increases the cost of local government and local institutions like hospitals, law enforcement, etc. to this new blog category. vj =========================================== from: http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/opinion/syndicated/story/3754432p-13240298c.html BONNIE ERBE: A look at some fresh numbers on immigration Published: Thursday, November 29, 2007 No public debate about the impact of immigration on American life is fair or complete without reference to the most recent data from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). ( See http://www.cis.org/topics/illegalimmigration.html ) Let me state for the record, as I always do when writing about this thorny issue, I am the proud granddaughter of a Cuban immigrant. Immigrants, like native-born Americans, are good people -- hardworking and patriotic. Individual immigrants are not problematic; mass immigration, both legal and illegal, is. Race should not figure into the debate about mass immigration. Quality of life and immigration's impact on the U.S. environment and government resources should drive the debate. Mass immigration is ruining the quality of life for the children and grandchildren of immigrants already in the... Read more →

Risky Florida & Lake County Government Cash Investments Disclosed by Orlando Sentinel

Lake County Government Avoids Possible Loss of a Percentage of their $144 million Investments in State's "Local Government Investment Pool" This blog entry was started before 8am on 11/29/2007 (Update 1:20 pm - Note - this is a critical issue - I will be updating this posting periodically with new info or corrections - just added the State press release on the issue at the bottom, and the link to the State's Nov. 9 report that started the run of withdrawals). Updated Nov. 29 - 1:20pm UPDATE - 2:40 pm Thursday - I received calls from County Commissioner Jennifer Hill and from Lake County Finance department Chief Deputy Clerk Barbara Lehman that Lehman also was concerned about the investment risk, and started pulling out the funds this morning at 9am. As a result, all $144-million in County short term investments are NOW out of the State Investment pool as described below. The below articles remain as written to give background on the issue. However, we don't know if other local government agencies, including the School District, have any investments with the State. UPDATE - 4pm - Lake County School District Board member Jimmy Conner said they moved their short term... Read more →

Conference of Mayors Forecasts 2008 $80-billion Florida Real Estate Value drop

I am including this article here because it discusses falling real estate prices, including Florida, and is from the Conference of Mayors. Falling Real Estate prices = lower property taxes which means less income for local governments, which is another reason to practice sound management in government. This article is similar to research appearing in Business Week. Next year will be worse than 2007. I lived through three of these real estate downturns in California, and this one will be worse because of all the flimsy sub-prime loans that are resetting thru mid-2008 to higher payments, plus all the speculative buyers that were in the market that can't carry the extra inventory. vj ==================================================== Nov. 27, 2007 - from http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=atgFG_y3hGqY&refer=home U.S. Mortgage Crisis Slams Property Values, State Tax Receipts By Michael B. Marois Enlarge Image/Details Nov. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The worst U.S. housing recession in 16 years will drive down property values by $1.2 trillion next year and slash tax revenue by more than $6.6 billion, according to a report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. California, the hardest-hit state, will suffer a $630.6 billion decrease in property values that will cut property tax revenue to local governments by almost... Read more →

UK Governement Agency Loses Personal Data of 7-million citizens

It always seems that government agencies don't prioritize citizen data privacy - here we have the big case where the UK (Britain) tax office LOST two CD discs with privacy data on 7-million UK citizens by sending them in internal email without any receipts or controls. It also turns out that the intended recipient, the National Audit Office, had specifically requested a version of the data that was "de-sensitized" where private bank data and other data would be removed. The tax agency didn't want to pay the extra processing fee by the outsourced data managers (EDS - the firm founded by Ross Perot - remember them?), thus they sent all the data without removing the sensitive data. Now, as political investigations start up, there is an accusation that high level tax agency managers approved the uncontrolled process, and it was not just a mistake by a junior level employee (whose name has not been released yet. Finally, my experience is that if they could put the data on a CD, then many intermediate level professionals could have opened the database, filtered out the sensitive data, and THEN sent the CD out. Which brings up another issue - many government employees... Read more →

Local Government Administrative Services Should Be Consolidated Like These Charities

The article below is about the merger of charities because they find there are more of them competing for the same donations. For instance, numerous animal rights groups hit up the same donors, so some are merging to reduce costs and increase their brand name. Now, why am I including this article here on a website that focuses on improving government fiscal management. Because there is one quote that directly acts as an example that could be adopted by Florida County government agencies. Here it is: The Doris Day Animal League and the Fund for Animals share common legal divisions, technology and accounting systems, mailing lists and other things. By combining those operations, the organizations will save $1.5 million annually, Mr. Pacelle said. So here we have several charities that have merged their administrative functions to reduce costs. Consolidation is the term for this practice, and it is used all the time by businesses to reduce costs. In contrast, the way Florida County government works, there are five completely separate elected "Constitutional Offices" or government agencies in Lake County, FL. There is the County Government (elected Board), the School District (elected Board), County Sheriff, County Assessor, and County Tax Collector.... Read more →

Voucher Program Failure in Milwaukee

We haven't covered voucher programs much here, because there isn't one that I know of in Lake County, But there are Charter Schools which are similar. However, Charter schools in Florida are subject to some reviews and quality criteria. But, in the article below, it describes how a school voucher system was set up in Milwaukee in the 1990's and became a huge failure. One big reason is that ANYONE could set up a private school using voucher income without any quality or professional standards, and numerous schools became funding programs for the leaders, and not the kids education. Read on - I don't think this can be an indictment of all voucher programs, but an indicator how government can set up a voucher program WITHOUT any oversight, controls or standards, and it becomes a failure. You might say it resulted from a complete lack of government fiscal management, which is the point of this website. It is time that taxpayers get the same quality of fiscal management from elected politicians for government programs that private businesses practice all the time. vj =============================================== from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=684457 Some bad choices were made regarding school choice By WALTER... Read more →