Fiscal Rangers

Alien Takes over Minds of Four previously Thrifty Lake County Commissioners

I have this "death ray" 1950's floor heater that also helps detect aliens. I had to use it last week to determine that a flying space alien had indeed taken over the minds of four of the Lake County Commissioners. Then, if you use 3d glasses (or drink Rose Wine to tint your eyes red like I did), I could actually see the alien hovering over the Commissioners at last week's meeting. The alien looks suspiciously like the Flying Nun (portrayed by Sally Fields in the old TV series). What, you ask, did the alien do to the Commissioners (while excluding Elaine Renick)? Sally Field's Flying Nun - the Alien who altered our Commissioner's minds... Well, about 2-3 weeks ago, they acted in a sane manner and refused to fund a $90-million Judicial Expansion building project, which would have required additional bonds and debt. Instead, they said to the architect to come back with a plan to live with the cash they had on hand from a prior bond issuance, which was about $36-million. Additionally, they had some savings from the parking structure and some sales tax revenue, so i think the total available was about $42-million. So, that was... Read more →

More Questionable Personnel Practices at Lake County Government

Updated at 4:3o pm - The blog, Right Side of Lake, published an email from County Manager Cindy Hall which seems to indicate this issue was discussed by her in a memo about 10 days ago. It is at the link below the article. vj Lake County, FL - Lauren Ritchie dropped another cannonball on the backs of the Lake County Commissioners in her Sunday, Sept. 27 column where she outed another personnel blunder committed by County Management. It seems when the County HR Manager and County Manager encouraged certain staff to resign while getting some severance, they also encouraged to resignees to also illegally file for unemployment compensation, saying the County would not contest any such filings. The County Manager Cindy Hall did this without informing the Board, and as Ritchie points out, the extra unemployment comp costs to the taxpayer could have exceeded $160,000, and would have been buried in other accounts and not approved by the Board. Ritchie says it all below, but how much of this must continue while the Commissioners still retain the County Manager and personnel Director after a continuous series of questionable human resources decisions (covered in earlier postings)? At what point does... Read more →

FiscalRangers.com Plan to Profit from Lake County Rezonings Killed by County Commission

I always wanted to be a commercial developer. The wealthy developers make money by buying land (or options on the land) using fancy drawings of the project to get other people's money (OPM - i.e. dumb investors), then getting elected zoning boards or officials to allow zoning changes to build projects that are more profitable than those allowed under the old zoning structure. An example can be the Lake Nona bio-tech center in Orlando - I bet the land was originally zoned for agriculture, then rezoned to allow multi story commercial buildings. That one worked. In contrast, Church St. Station in Orlando has gone through up and down cycles, and the shopping center near Plaza Colina in South Lake County got a Walmart instead of promised high end shopping. I used to travel to Houston and marvel at a Houston area County where there was NO zoning (which may have changed since then), so you never knew what would be built near you. A friend who was a Corporate Controller bought a new fancy brick house in a new housing complex, which included neighbors like NFL football players. Then the summer came, and they found what was on the other... Read more →

Palm Beach FL County Recovering from String of Corruption Charges

Palm Beach County has been going through a string of corruption investigations since January of this year, and now they are establishing an ethics office AND an Office of Inspector General. I would rather have a beefed up internal audit department. As the article mentions, the IG will be selected by a panel of attorneys and law enforcement people, without any auditors involved. Thus what happens is the focus will be to hire an attorney, probably a former prosecutor, whose focus will be on after the fact investigations, and not prevenention. Attorneys do NOT know how to define internal controls nor are they oriented to spending time to review systems and recommend improvements. Instead, their mode of operations is to use a fraud reporting hotline to get tips, or setup stings, rather than implement preventive or detection programs to prevent corruption from happening. That is what a good internal audit department would do, and that is why that is what they need, not another attorney. Read the article at the link below. vj County corruption fallout: Palm Beach County officials urge ethics office, panel here By JENNIFER SORENTRUE Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Thursday, September 24, 2009 With three former... Read more →

Marily Bainter Response to Daily Commerical Op Ed supporting Hospital Tax

Our earlier post on the North lake Hospital District included a link to the Daily Commercial's op ed column supporting the continuation of the hospital tax. That is even though the law establishing the Hospital Tax District in North lake County had NO conditions on how the funds were to be spent, and NO specifications for oversight procedures, and NO requirements for the Hospitals to provide specific audit trails of how the funds were to be spent. The Daily Commercial wants the tax to continue because the Hospital management said they need the money. I need the money also. I want to open a Dairy Queen to improve local health by providing subsidized ice cream using healthy milk to low income people. But, I want the same wording in my agreement - no specific requirements on how the funds are to be spent, so I can spend it on relatives, transfer funds to other operations or pay myself a REALLY BIG deferred compensation payment (like a pension). Kudos however to the Daily Commercial for actually printing Marilyn's response. Original Editorial from Daily Commercial, Sept 23 Below is Marilyn's Response Hospital tax will hurt businesses Hospital tax will hurt businesses- by... Read more →

Wall St. Journal on Curtailing Non-Profit Hospital Tax Breaks

This July, 2009 article describes efforts by US Senators to pare back the tax breaks received by non-profit hospitals. It is relevant in lake County because, as we just posted earlier, Lake County taxpayers also are taxed 1 mill to provide even more taxpayer funding of the two local hospitals. As the article describes, it is getting harder and harder to identify the difference between for profit and non-profit hospitals. vj JULY 10, 2009 Senators Consider Curtailing Hospitals' Tax Breaks Exemptions, Historically Tied to Charity Care, Expected to Fall in an Overhaul; Industry Says It's Already Taking Hits By BARBARA MARTINEZ Senators working on health-care legislation are considering provisions to pare back the billions of dollars in tax breaks enjoyed by U.S. hospitals. More than half of the 5,482 hospitals in the U.S. are nonprofits that don't pay federal, state or local taxes, according to the American Hospital Directory. This status is rooted in the 19th century: the first U.S. hospitals almost exclusively served the poor; others paid for medical care at home. The tax exemptions were meant to help hospitals shoulder the costs of providing such free care. But in the past decade, some nonprofit hospitals have amassed big... Read more →

Hospital District Board Votes Again to Increase Property Tax by 1 Mill without Oversight or Conditions

Let's imagine your spouse came home and said your homeowner's association got a good deal on a roof replacement. They signed a maintenance agreement so EVERY YEAR they will assess 1% of every resident's salary to a roofing company "who needed it" because they could not compete with firms in 57 other counties without the yearly payment agreement. In addition, the "contract" did not have any specifics on oversight procedures, how the funds were to be spent, or what kind of documentation was required, or whether your neighborhood homeowner's association board would even look at the documentation or question where the funds were spent. AND, every year the Association Board again voted to pay the 1% without knowing exactly what the funds were spent on. Would you think that was a fair deal for your money? But that is how the local North Lake County Hospital District law and the Board behaves. In the last two weeks, the North Lake Hospital District Board held public meetings to hear input before hiking taxes by 1 mill on property owners. I call it hiking the tax, because for 45 years, the Board has rubber stamped approval to choose charging taxpayers 1 mill... Read more →

Tavares "Boil Water" Notice Revised to Specific areas in Map

Tavares, FL had a "Boil Water" notice due to water tests that showed some test samples had evidence of eColi in the water. After 3 days, the City of Tavares (at www.Tavares.org ) issued a revised map showing a much smaller area of Tavares subject to the boil water notice. That map is at: http://www.tavares.org/map092209.pdf Go to www.DailyCommercial.com or www.OrlandoSentinel.com (Lake section) to find articles. Here is the amended notice. The new map indicates they can drink water in the County Commission building again (and in my house in south Tavares. I was in the County round Admin building today and a notice was posted that just said "Don't drink the water..." without any explanation. But, aren't we glad that some officials were testing the water and found the problem? vj Read more →

Lake County (Florida) Budget & History Museum Closure Update

Two days ago, on Sept 15, the Lake County (FL) County Commissioners held a morning and then afternoon meeting. The Morning Meeting (9am): It was a fairly routine meeting to approve various agenda items and you can get the agenda (WITH clickable links to supporting documents, which is cool!) on the website HERE. However, several people were there to listen to the discussion at the END of the meeting, during Commissioner Comments, about County Manager Cindy Hall's annual employee evaluation. One local newspaper already reported that both Commissioner Jimmy Conner and Elaine Renick had given her poor marks in few areas. Knowing this was an issue, I had even visited the County offices and using a records request, had reviewed Cindy Hall's resume. It actually was more impressive than I thought. She has a Master's in Economics and experience in several government agencies leading to her being hired a few years ago as Deputy County Manager, then moving up when a vacancy occurred. Then the discussion at the meeting started, with Jimmy leading. At one point, he questioned why the other three Commissioners would give her high marks in every area when there had been a series of blunders that... Read more →

North Lake Hospital District 2nd Board Meeting Tonight - Thursday, Sept. 17th

The second Board meeting of the North Lake County (Florida) Hospital District is tonight, Thursday, at 5pm (get there early) in the Lake County Commission Offices. I haven't really publicized it because we know the Board will not listen to public input or requests for changes, so a few of us reform activists will be there, and I will post a follow up tomorrow, along with my notes on last week's meeting AND my visit to the CFO of LRMC. Basically, this Board has refused any public requests to initiate changes to the existing legislation to provide more flexibility in the tax rate that is approved each year (currently an almost automatic, rubber stamp rate of 1 mill). They have refused requests even to approve a video tape of the meetings, and they have refused even giving a second vote to discuss issues brought up by Board member Marilyn Bainter. At this time I don't have any evidence the two hospitals receiving almost $12-million in tax proceeds without conditions have acted irresponsibly. But, the Board won't take any action to act on behalf of taxpayers to research just where the funds are going and initiating specific programs to benefit taxpayers... Read more →

Orlando Unemployment Ratio to Open Jobs is 6 to 1 vs 1 to 1 for Washington DC

A jobs website, Insight.com, posted a study of the 50 largest cities and their ratio of unemployed workers to each open job. In the Orlando area, it is 6 to 1, while the best locations to get a job are in the Washington, DC area. So, if you want to get some of that stimulus money, chances are better in DC or Baltimore than Florida. See the entire list of 50 cities and their ratios HERE. PS: Two local retired friends just sold their houses which are located right on Lake Eustis and are moving to South Carolina. They each bought more than 6 acres, which up there can be zoned mostly as agricultural land, and the property tax is $1 per acre. Naturally, being guys, they had their priorities correct, and built a large barn for their toys first (which are taxable here in FL), then they each will build a house. (Unincorporated - not near a large city or town). However, the motive wasn't so much taxes, as weather, hurricanes AND then escaping FL property taxes. vj Read more →

Angry shout thrusts illegal immigrant Free Health Care into debate

Remember at the recent speech by President Obama that a Republican congressman jumped up and said "You Lie" when Obama claimed that illegal immigrants would not get any of the health care spending in his program? Well, here is an article about how that his shouted message has people again focusing on the illegal immigration problem, what they cost the California taxpayers. Click this link to see an explanatory pie chart. It shows that 33% of California's medically uninsured are noncitizens with or without green cards. Download Calif uninsured And, they mention that two California Counties are now demanding proof of citizenship before admitting people into their clinics. Federal law says hosptials cannot turn them away, but apparently that doesn't apply to local clinics. Now that really shows that California is broke! Quote from article below: "Sacramento and Yolo counties recently said they would begin requiring proof of citizenship before providing treatment at county clinics." vj Angry shout thrusts illegal immigrants into debate From Sacramento Bee By Bobby Caina Calvan [email protected] Published: Friday, Sep. 11, 2009 - 12:00 am On national television, President Barack Obama contended this week that his plan to overhaul the country's health care system wouldn't spend... Read more →

Arrogant Board of North Lake County Hospital District Votes to Continue 1 mill Tax

Note: Two more important meetings are coming up related to the Hospital Tax - see details at the end of this article. We also list the contact info for the Hospital Board members. Last night, after waiting 8 months, the North Lake County (FL) Hospital Taxing District Board voted 5 to 1 to continue the consistent, rubber stamp practice of approving a 1 mill property tax ( i.e $100 tax on every $100,000 property value) on North Lake property owners. The tax collections total about $11-million and they are split between the two local hospitals (LRMC & Waterman) without any deliverables or conditions other than supplying audited financial statements. Additionally, Lifestream Behavioral Center gets 5% of the funds from each hospital. For the first time in the memory of many, the 4+ hours tax hearing was held in the large County Commission Chambers with about 150+ hospital employees supporting the tax, and local property tax reform activists opposing it. In the past, the meetings were held, the tax approved in 15 minutes without most taxpayers even understanding what the tax was for. Although the 6-member Board did listen stoically to both tax opponents and tax supporters who spoke without time... Read more →

North Lake County Hospital District - update 1 - Meeting tonight & Daily Commercial Article

Update 2: We added a second article from the Orlando Sentinel at the bottom of this document. The North Lake County Hospital Tax District Board meeting is tonight at the Lake County Commission Building (the old ROUND courthouse) on Main st. in Tavares. Official start time is 5:15 pm (the article below says 5:30 pm, but don't believe it), but the hospital staffs, their investors, management and supporters of taxpayer funded free healthcare may try to fill the seats so get there early to get a seat. At the bottom of this page is an article published today in the Daily Commercial about the Hospital District. It fairly describes the issues and quotes Marilyn Bainter, a new member on the Hospital Tax District Board who has been the initiator of questioning the purpose of the District and legitimacy for the automatic 1 mill tax. The issue is that the Board will vote like they have for 40 years and approve an automatic 1 mill property tax on North lake propery owners without any investigations, dialog or power to reduce the millage rate to keep in line with actual economic indicators. The Board will consider two resolutions - one to continue,... 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 →

Taxes Today - an essay by Charlie Reese

Lake County local Ralph Smith sent me this which he received from Stan Bainter. Kinda makes you tired of all the taxes he describes below! This is a good item to read before going to this week's various government agencies to watch them approve their budgets and any tax increases. vj 545 PEOPLE By Charlie Reese Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them. Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits? Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes? You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does. You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does. You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does. One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually... 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 →

FiscalRangers is now on Twitter

This twitter account will only be for news relevant to the mission of FiscalRangers.com which focuses on local government management and fiscal issues. http://twitter.com/FiscalRanger (note - there is NO "s" at the end of this url) I will slowly start using it this week when attending the various budget votes of different Lake County, FL government agencies, including the Lake County, FL School District (Sept 8th at 5:15 pm in the County Commission chambers in the round courthouse on Main - be there early to get a seat), the County Commission (later in the month in the same room), and the North Lake County Hospital District (Sept 8th, also in County Commission Chambers - be there before 5pm to get a seat). vj 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 →

Ralph Smith's Lake County Roundtable Radio Show Audio Files for Sept. 2, 2009

Yes, folks, we have figured out how to record and post audio files of Ralph's weekly radio show. You can listen to the attached audio files of Ralph Smith's "Lake County Roundtable" AM Radio Show in Lake County, FL (based in Leesburg) from today, Wed., Sept. 2, 2009. The show is EVERY Wednesday at 11am to noon on WLBE 790AM radio. You can read an overview of the show, or scroll down and click the two files and listen to the actual audio files of the show. His topics for today were: - Lake County's Property Assessor, Ed Havill's resignation from the Republican Party, as described in the Orlando Sentinel's Lake section because of Governor Crist's appointment of a former advisor who many people think is unqualified. - A lambast on the current 545 members of the House of Representatives and the need to vote them ALL out of office. "Get rid of these losers...clean them all out..." - A reading of a massive list of taxes we all have to pay, and - The 78% increase in prices of apple pie at McDonalds - inflation is here... - Ralph's new email for the show: [email protected] - Website addresses for... Read more →

Lake County Expected to Pay over $70,000 in Age Discrimination lawsuit

Last year we reported on massive research studies by Lee Johnson about questionable hiring, firing, promotion and demotion practices used at Lake County government that appeared biased and contrary to most current standard personnel practices in organizations that understand current personnel regulations. Basically, some people were fired in a discriminatory manner, and others were frends or relatives hired, possibly without public application notices, etc. (I noticed in yesderday's Board meeting agenda that the County is posting advertisement notices for a new manager position, but only in two Saturday papers, which indicates to me they don't want anyone to see the notices, and probably have a favored person already picked for the open position). And, we commented about the Lake County's SHIP grant audit conducted by the County Clerk's auditor, and how it indicated that it was mismanaged and borderline ethical decisions were made. Well, Lee Johnson has been working in the background to continue efforts to support lawsuits and investigations on the evidence he uncovered, and results are slowly coming in. If you read this today, Wed., Sept. 2 before 11am, you might also want to tune in to Ralph Smith's Lake County (FL) Round Table radio show every Wed.... Read more →