Fiscal Rangers

Lake County Lays off 23 Employees due to Expected $8-million Budget Shortfall

According to Lake County Commissioner Jimmy Conner's blog at www.ConnerReport.com, the County Interim Manager, Sandy Minkoff has laid off another 23 employees due to a projected $8-million budget shortfall expected for next fiscal year. Just think, they are reacting, but still don't have weekly status reports at Board meetings on economic development, job growth activities or projects to fill the estimated 5,000 foreclosed homes in Lake County. You can't turn around an economy if you aren't PUBLICLY tracking progress in the factors that cause up and down economic pressures. Maybe that is why another blog reported that incumbent County Commissioner Elaine Renick skipped a candidate forum this last weekend at Liberty Baptist Church. It is easier to hide than bring these issues out in the open on a weekly basis as priorities and discuss them. Here is what Jimmy said, or you can visit his blog: County Reorganizes To Increase Efficiency June 29, 2010 Due to declining revenues, County Manager Sandy Minkoff has been forced to lay off an additional 23 county employees. Property values continue to decline and next year's revenues are expected to drop another $8 million dollars, therefore the County has no choice but to reduce its... 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 →

Immigration: UK Accelerates Law to Mandate Immigrant Spouses Are Required to Speak Basic English

England, according to the BBC, is getting fed up with immigrants who do not bother learning English. They had a law that was to go into effect in 2011 that required any foreign person from outside Europe that married a UK citizen must now prove they could speak basic English before they receive a Visa to immigrate to the UK as a spouse. That was not the case before. The new immigrant spouses will have to show they can speak English at the level of a 5-7 year old, and the effective date of the law is being moved forward to later this year instead of 2011. The article quoted leaders as saying that they want to "raise the bar" for migrants...and that the English speaking requirement will "help promote integration,remove cultural barriers and protect public services." Gee, what a good idea for the US. And maybe another one is to require anyone over 18 getting a driver's license, citizenship, a green card, employment, medical services, entry into the education system, a social security number or passport that they FIRST prove they speak and write English at the 12th grade level. Additionally, local governments should restrict posting of any NON-English... Read more →

Immigration: UK Accelerates Law to Mandate Immigrant Spouses Are Required to Speak Basic English

England, according to the BBC, is getting fed up with immigrants who do not bother learning English. They had a law that was to go into effect in 2011 that required any foreign person from outside Europe that married a UK citizen must now prove they could speak basic English before they receive a Visa to immigrate to the UK as a spouse. That was not the case before. The new immigrant spouses will have to show they can speak English at the level of a 5-7 year old, and the effective date of the law is being moved forward to later this year instead of 2011. The article quoted leaders as saying that they want to "raise the bar" for migrants...and that the English speaking requirement will "help promote integration,remove cultural barriers and protect public services." Gee, what a good idea for the US. And maybe another one is to require anyone over 18 getting a driver's license, citizenship, a green card, employment, medical services, entry into the education system, a social security number or passport that they FIRST prove they speak and write English at the 12th grade level. Additionally, local governments should restrict posting of any NON-English... Read more →

Palm Beach County Hires their First Inspector General & Lake County Needs One

I have written earlier about the corruption in Palm Beach County that resulted in a citizen demand to create and fund a powerful Inspector General department. Well, they just named the new IG, who was the Inspector General over the Florida State Dept. of Children and Families... We need a similar department in Lake County due to the... lackadaisical audits of the County and NO performance audits of the Constitutional officers. vj Palm Beach County Commissioners unanimously hire Palm Beach County's first inspector general By Jennifer Sorentrue Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Updated: 5:13 p.m. Tuesday, June 8, 2010 WEST PALM BEACH — The woman responsible for stamping out corruption in the State's Department of Children and Families was hired today to serve as Palm Beach County's first inspector general. County commissioners unanimously approved Sheryl Steckler's four-year employment contract for the post. She is slated to begin working later this month. Steckler was one of eight finalists for the newly-created post. A seven-member selection panel made up of the county's ethics commission, State Attorney Michael McAuliffe and Public Defender Carey Haughwout chose Steckler after two days of interviews. She will be paid $150,000 a year. Read more →

Lake County Commission Race Election Candidate Platitudes & Vague Promises

The election season for local politicos is heating up, but many candidates are spouting platitudes & vague generalities as their campaign points, rather than specifics. Here is a collection of the campaign promises and platitudes I collected about a month ago from the websites of just those candidates running for County Commissioner (District 4 and District 2). They are all running (including myself) to replace incumbents Linda Stewart & Elaine Renick. When you hear these in speeches or read them on flyers, look for the LACK of specific local examples (like you see on this blog every week) or LACK of specific suggestions to FIX a specific problem defined by the platitude. For instance, if a candidate says they will cut "waste, fraud & abuse", then ask what specific examples led them to think there is "waste, fraud & abuse" in the local government agency. There have been not reported instances of fraud in recent history within either the County government or School District that I am aware of (although there has been a lot of mismanagement in the County causing "waste"). Most could not even define "abuse" (which is to abuse the use of public resources, like using the... Read more →

Lake County District 2 Commissioner Elaine Renick Decides to Run for Re-Election

Tavares, FL This could also be sub-titled "Reasons for Republicans NOT to Re-elect either incumbent Linda Stewart (District 4) or Elaine Renick (District 2) to their positions on the Lake County, FL Board of Commissioners. There was a Lake County Commissioner candidate forum on Saturday at the Legacy for candidates for the two of five Board positions up for re-election. Until then, only Linda Stewart (District 4) had been active in conducting a re-election campaign. The other open seat is for District 2, and is held by Elaine Renick, but she had not filed to run for re-election until apparently late last week, then she showed up at the forum. So, the three Republican candidates who had been running to replace her weren't too happy when she showed up and now is running. That throws a whole new picture on the race, since incumbents, even ones that are not popular, can get up to 30% of votes just because they are an incumbent. So, now the new District 2 candidates, Dave Yeager, Sean Parks, and Mark Saunders will face the same problem that Linda Stewart's four District 4 opponents have (myself, Buddy Atkins, Paul Williams & Leslie Campione). That is,... 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 →