Fiscal Rangers

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 →

Speaker of the House Pelosi Spends $5.7-million in JUST fuel to fly home

I think this article speaks for itself about the waste incurred by Speaker of the House Pelosi. It makes local issues about spending $9000 on air travel (Orange County politics) seem mundane. I don't know the source of this article - it was sent to me. vj MADAME PELOSI - Democrat - Speaker of the House of Representatives Madame Pelosi wasn't happy with the small private jet that comes with the Speaker's job, no, Madame Pelosi was aggravated that this little jet had to stop to refuel, so she ordered a Big Fat 200 seat jet that could get her back to California without stopping! Many, many legislators walked by and grinned with glee as Joe informed everyone 'that's Nancy's Big Fat Jet that costs us, the hard working American tax payers, thousands of gallons of fuel every week'. Since she only works 3 days a week, this gas-guzzling jet gets fueled and she flies home to California , cost to the taxpayers of about $60,000, one way! As Joe put it, 'Unfortunately we have to pay to bring her back on Monday night.' Cost to us another $60,000. Folks, that is $480,000 per month and that is an annual... Read more →

Dept. of Defense Fraud Indicator Website Could Help Local Government Also

The Dept. of Defense has been slammed several times in audit reports from SIGIR (Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction) as well as the DoD Inspector General. They have suffered many fraud cases in Iraq and other procurement programs. Now, however, the DoD Inspector General (IG) has established a public website of the fraud indicators they look for when investigating possible fraud. This will be a living website to share techniques, and local government fiscal and audit staff could learn something from periodically looking at this website. And, we will too... http://www.dodig.mil/Inspections/APO/fraud/Index.htm (Plus the Washington Post says in the article they want to hear from people who use the website tools and find fraud in government...) And, the website has the DoD official definitions of waste, fraud & abuse, and I added them below the article. Favorite Quote: Definition of Waste by DoD IG –involves the taxpayers not receiving reasonable value for money in connection with any government funded activities due to an inappropriate act or omission by players with control over or access to government resources (e.g., executive, judicial or legislative branch employees, grantees or other recipients). Importantly, waste goes beyond fraud and abuse and most waste does not... Read more →