Fiscal Rangers

Nascar Sells Out Car Buffs by Pushing Ethanol E15 in Auto Gas

I used to watch Nascar races periodically, and identify with them since I watched Bill Elliot ("Million Dollar Bill") win at Daytona years ago with the purse for him at $1-million. But, Nascar has sullied their reputation by apparently putting profits ahead of the interests of car buffs by agreeing to push Ethanol at the 15% level as ok for automotive gas. But it isn't, as the following article and earlier posts on this blog have discussed. A friend of mine, Jerry, located here in Lake County with a "classic" Pontiac has come unglued about the damage caused to many engines by the existing 10% ethanol mix approved in Florida by Charlie Crist, and he is circulating petitions around the County. You can sign them at Harris Oil in Mount Dora, and it is in some other auto related stores. The existing 10% mix is considered borderline for older cars, and is known to damage two cycle engines used on Motorcycles, lawn equipment and boat outboard engines. Apparently Honda and other makes of small engines NOW state that the warranty on the engines is VOID (read the fine print) if ethanol is used at all in them. They even have... Read more →

Florida Economic Gardening Institute Honors 50 Florida Companies for Business Growth, But NONE are from Lake County

Yes, the State of Florida funds a project called GrowFL or the Florida Economic Gardening Institute, which provides services and supplies to growing Florida firms that are beyond the "start up" stage. Below is a link to a press release about them honoring the growth efforts of 50 firms. NOT ONE OF THEM IS FROM LAKE COUNTY... Numerous recipients are from Duval, Hillsborough and Orange County, but none from Lake. Embarassing - what were the Lake County economic development people doing all last year that they couldn't ensure that one goal was to have several Lake County businesses enrolled in the program? I once did see a discussion of the GROWFL program during an economic "BOSS" development forum run by the City of Minneola, but that is when I found that startups didn't qualify. They basically want firms that already have sales over $750,000 and meet other criteria. Now, if Lake County had good elected officials and good Economic Development leaders, they would be out researching all the Lake County firms that fit the criteria, and publicly challenging them to apply to be one of the firms receiving GrowFL funding. Maybe next month it will happen...the staffing of the Lake... Read more →

FL Gov. Rick Scott Releases Proposed Ideas to Improve Florida Business Climate

Gov. Rick Scott's transition team released a report of ideas, which is summarized in the AP article below. Some of them are pretty aggresive ideas. vj Transition team wants Florida to boost business By BILL KACZOR - dated Dec. 23, 2010 Associated Press - from the Miami Herald HERE TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- President Calvin Coolidge once said "the chief business of the American people is business." And Governor-elect Rick Scott's economic development transition team has recommended ways that he likewise can make business Florida's business when he takes office Jan. 4. Scott needs little urging. The multimillionaire Republican outsider, who made his fortune in the health care industry, campaigned on a platform of reducing taxes and regulations on businesses and creating 700,000 jobs in seven years. Those new jobs would be besides 1 million expected to be produced through Florida's economic recovery over that span. Scott has repeatedly said was elected due to one issue and that's "getting the state back to work." By that he means working in the private, not public, sector. He's promised to cut the state work force by 5 percent. The transition team has offered some ideas for achieving his job goal by expanding Florida... Read more →

Lake County Impact Fees - Should they be VARIABLE based on distance to infrastructure?

Note: If you are a Facebook member, and want to get frequent updates from our "FiscalRangers" facebook page, go HERE and "like" us.! In Lake County, our impact fees for new construction of houses and commercial buildings are fixed based upon sq ft and property type. The impact fee revenue is used to pay for added roads, schools, fire stations, and parks to handle the increased population. However, the impact fees are FIXED bacause there is no variable rate based upon distance from existing schools or defined population or commercial centers. Thus someone who develops a 400 unit housing development in a town near an existing school pays the same as someone who creates a new development in the boonies, 25 miles from existing schools or towns. The distance means that the County must build new schools and roads to handle the distant population. It seems to me that environmentalists want town centric development, and land owners, development attorneys, certain lumber yard owners and builders want the ability to create developments anywhere in Lake County, and not pay ANY impact fees. They want to shift the cost of new infrastructure to ALL taxpayers by using gas taxes or increased general... Read more →

Lake County Board Members to Consider Risky Strategy for Selecting the New County Manager

Yesterday, the Lake County Board had a six hour "retreat" to discuss future budgets, etc. I missed the meeting, only one member of the public was there, and no reporters. But, I was told that two Board members (Welton Cadwell & then Jimmy Conner) came out saying that they wanted interim County Manager Sandy Minkoff to be permanent, ...which was a surprise to everyone else, and then a third Commissioner, Jennifer Hill, said she also might support him. Until now, everyone was relying on earlier statements from Minkoff that he did not want the job and would return to being County Counsel... but that was a YEAR ago. And, until yesterday, there were plans for the Board to discuss County Manager hiring methods, by either hiring me ( not really, but a scary thought) or hiring a GOOD headhunter to find a really good County manager with a measurable track record who can lead this County out of the economic doldrums... kinda like John Drury is doing for the City of Tavares. My initial thoughts about this news is that there had been a momentum to use a headhunter to find a barn burner leader for the County, not an... Read more →

Osceola County Board Fires Four Staff which costs $800,000 in Severance

It is interesting to watch how fast some officials can fire a government manager, without regard to the cost of severance to the taxpayers. Below is an article about how the Osceola County Board cost the taxpayers $800,000 in severance pay by firing four people recently. My thought is that taxpayers need protection not from dumb or inefficient staff, but from dumb officials who don't try a mediation or counseling process, or anything. Now, of course, it could be that issues had been festering for months or years, and if so, the facts need to be disclosed better than a few quotes in the newspaper. My primary issues with this process of elected officials firing people is: - The allowed severances are way too high. They should be much lower. Why is it that government agencies allow such high severances in comparison to business? Is it because "it is not their money, but the taxpayer's money? Severance and termination policies should match those used by similar size industrial or corporate firms. (not non-profits). The Orlando Sentinel editorial at the bottom of this document describes how one agency limited severance to three months in a new manager's contract. In the case... Read more →

When will Lake County, Cities & School District Integrate Purchasing Efforts?

Tavares, Lake County, FL: The picture at left shows a typical paperwork based purchasing process - and we ask: do we in Lake County need to repeat that convoluted process with duplicative and separate systems (and several may be manual, not computerized) in each Lake County government Agency? Why don't they all share a single, internet based purchasing system running in the "internet cloud"? Why don't they consolidate County wide purchases to achieve economies of scale like corporations do on a daily basis? Local government purchasing departments have an annual fair for vendors to talk to representatives from the purchasing departments of many local Lake County agencies. I have attended the last two. I registered as a vendor (consulting) at the first fair, but never heard anything for about a year, but now I get a notice about once every two months for a request for proposal that is not relevant. The "leaders" of the purchasing fair created a "Pooled Purchasing" website called "Procurement Offices of LAKE" (POOL) within the Lake County website at http://pool.lakecountyfl.gov/ , and it is listed on the County's "Doing Business in Lake County" website. BUT, if you look at it, it hasn't been updated at... Read more →

Lake County FL Board Requests Ideas from Public on Improving Business Growth

This project to collect ideas from the public was initiated by new Board member Leslie Campione and the Lake County Government now has the below webpage to collect ideas from the public. The submission deadline is January 14th, and your ideas will go directly to the Commissioners for consideration in a new economic growth strategy and planning meetings in January or February. Visit the page and submit some ideas! We will. Send US a copy to FiscalRangers AT comcast DOT net and we will publish them. vj http://www.lakecountyfl.gov/departments/commissioners/business_growth_comments.aspx and, while you are generating ideas, send some to Governor-Elect Rick Scott at HIS idea submission webpage HERE: http://www.scotttransition.com/send-your-ideas/ AND... you could look at Florida Tax Watch's report of 125 ideas to fix Florida HERE: http://www.floridataxwatch.org/resources/pdf/12082010GCTSF.pdf Read more →

Cost Reduction Ideas We Have Submitted to new FL Governor Rick Scott

Florida Governor-elect Rick Scott has a transition website and a webpage to collect ideas from the public to reduce Florida government costs. It is HERE at http://www.scotttransition.com/send-your-ideas/ . Here are some ideas I submitted - I will add more as I do them. 2010-12-09 - Establishment of Independent and Elected County Auditors is Needed Florida counties have no County level department assigned full oversight over performance areas like efficiency, economy or effectiveness. The Auditor General does superficial, low quality financial audits, and the Counties brag about "award winning" CAFR reports and financial audits, but NO ONE is assigned independent review (unlike corporations) of operational metrics, efficiency, and effectiveness to reduce measurable costs. Florida needs to establish tough, mandatory departmental performance metrics, AND establish an independently elected County Auditor like other States have with authority to initiate performance audits of County, Schools, Constitution Officers, Special Districts and Cities. (Note: Some Florida Counties have had so many problems that they established their own County Inspector General - but they are usually run by ex-law enforcement or attorneys and are focused on after the fact investigations of wrongdoing, and not reviewing and improving performance measurement systems BEFORE problems can occur.) 2010-12-09 OPPAGA Needs... Read more →

Governator Elect Rick Scott Establishes High Level Education Reform Committee

In the past, we wrote about actions by then Washington DC Chancellor of Schools, Michelle Rhee, who was turning around the DC schools by firing poor teachers, using merit pay, standing up to union demands and other drastic actions. Now, Rick Scott has selected her as a member of the Education reform transition team for Florida. Wanna bet she is appointed head of the Florida Education system? I would think poor teachers, and teacher unions will get aggravated over this. So, wouldn't you know, the local Lake County School District unions are already asking to start bargaining sessions for next fiscal year's budget allocations for wages and benefits. Unlike businesses, which base wage increases on merit and comparison to economic and competitor statistics, the unions start out by asked how much is in the budget, then go after as much as they can get. It will be interesting to watch what happens, and see if Board members actually use REAL wage and economic data to evaluate the "merit" of any wage increases. (If they did, the wages would be rolled back or benefits reduced and employee contributions for benefits increased.) Here is Scott's transition website and the press release on... Read more →

Lake County Board Asks Public for Brainstorming Ideas to Increase Business Growth

Lake County, FL: New County Commissioner Leslie Campione discussed an economic development brainstorming project at prior Board meetings to collect ideas from the public to increase business growth. After building consensus and unanimous support from the other Board members, Campione was selected to spearhead the effort. The County has setup a web page to provide online or mailable forms to solicit ideas. Ideas from the public are due by January 15th, and the Board will have one or two brainstorming sessions to review the submissions, and perhaps ask submitters to come and present their ideas to the Board. Right now, the staff has also been asked to provide ideas, and also describe how their individual departments affect business development (i.e. fees, permits and time to approve them, etc). Here is the press release, so start collecting your ideas and submit them. I would suggest well researched ones with specific recommendations would be more acceptable than just providing platitudes. For instance, research how your idea is implemented in another agency and provide results data: vj Commissioners solicit suggestions from community on growing businesses in Lake County TAVARES — The Lake County Board of County Commissioners is seeking input from the community... Read more →

Get Ready to Pitch Legislative Requests to Lake County Delegation on January 5th

Lake County, FL: The annual Lake County Legislation delegation meeting is where various local agencies make a pitch for Florida State government funding or regulations from the Lake County Florida State legislators (Reps and Senators), and where Marilyn Bainter previously asked for changes to the Hospital District legislation to allow a flexible millage rate (which were ignored). I don’t have the time yet, but it will probably be at the auditorium at Lake Sumter CC. So, if someone let Godzilla loose in Eustis, and he and King Kong took out some historic homes, and your agency wants the State to initiate legislation to provide grant funding for a specific Godzilla rehab clinic grant, this might be the place to make a pitch. (Good luck on that... ) At a previous delegation meeting two years ago, the Legislators let hospital reps give a presentation, but them forced Bainter and her supporters to wait until the END of the meeting after everyone left to give their public input. Hopefully, if Bainter makes a presentation this year, she won't be treated so badly. The County BCC is being asked in next Tuesday’s agenda (tab 6) to approve a staff prepared list for the... Read more →

Lake County School Board STILL Does not Provide an Electronic Copy of their Budget on their Website

I just tried to get an electronic version of the 700 page budget for the Lake County School District. The District only has an absurd, confusing 21 page summary on the website. I was told the detailed budget was not available in electronic file format, but I could pay about $105 to get a printed copy. It is time they put ALL detailed budget documents on the website, including interim working versions. In contrast, the Lake County Board provides their detailed 400 page budget on their website, and the School District Finance Office needs to do the same. Here is a link to the only budget provided by the School District, which is a confusing, "required State format" report of only 21 pages. I have worked for several large firms that always used print to file software (even from mainframe computers) to produce electronic printed versions of large computer reports. These days, most operating systems have print to pdf drivers to create electronic versions of computer reports, and the School District needs to start using them. For instance, HERE is the Palo Alto, California 418 page budget in 27 mb pdf format. HERE is the Chicago Public Schools GUIDE to... Read more →