Fiscal Rangers

County Attorney Overspends Impact Fee Funded Land Buys by $28-million

Jan. 28, 2011 I always read the Saturday papers in detail because they usually contain articles about government screwups, and the government agency releases the information late on Friday, hoping no one reads the Saturday paper or watches the Saturday TV news. Oooops...I found a BIG government screwup... But, fortunately, this $28-million attorney caused screw up was not in Lake County, but in Osceola County. We have written or provided public input about the lack of business sense in Lake County attorney led contract writing issues in Lake County (and recently the Lake County School District construction contracts), but this one in Osceola takes the cake. The Osceola County legal department cost their taxpayers about $28-million more than budgeted for road project land buys. It seems Osceola County wanted to launch seven road projects using local property based impact fee taxes for a total of $200-million. So the Osceola County Attorney's office somehow decided that all land purchases should be accomplished not by negotiations, but by suing the owners of 360 parcels of land they needed. AND, the Assistant Attorney followed that plan without she or anyone keeping track of the running costs or comparing the final costs of all... Read more →

Florida's Miami-Dade County to repay $3.6-million to HUD for lousy accounting

If you are a County government, and get a Federal grant from the US Dept. of Housing and Urban development (HUD), you better keep good records to show where you spent it. Apparently the staff at Miami-Dade County flopped the accounting test, and had to repay $3.6-million. This is apparently in a long string of accounting screw ups in that County. Watch out for those Federal audits, Lake County! vj Posted on Thu, Jan. 20, 2011 Miami-Dade must repay $3.6M in Housing and Urban Development funds BY MARTHA BRANNIGAN [email protected] In the latest sign of weak financial controls in Miami-Dade government, the county must pay back $3.6 million in federal grant funds received from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development after a federal audit found that county officials couldn't show the money was properly used. The county's latest problems with HUD -- which administrators unveiled at a County Commission meeting Thursday -- come just two years after the federal agency returned control of the troubled Miami-Dade Housing Agency to county hands after 15 months under HUD supervision. The disclosure angered several commissioners -- particularly in view of unrelated financial woes at the Miami-Dade Transit Agency, which has seen... Read more →

Guest Editorial on North Lake County Hospital District - "Follow the Money"

Tavares, FL Jan. 27, 2011 - Tonight was one of the three annual meetings of the North Lake County Hospital District. Three new Board members (out of six) were in attendance. However, this morning, a local blog, Right Side of the Lake, posted an UNSIGNED editorial blasting local activist Marilyn Bainter, who has led efforts to gain accountability and constitutional legitimacy for the Hospital District. Below is an editorial opinion sent out by the Chairman of the North Lake County Tea Party, Dave VonGunten - Tomorrow, I will provide a second posting on what happened at tonight's Hospital District Board meeting, but read this editorial: vj ================================================== North Lake TEA Party Patriots Sent out by David VonGunten at David VonGunten ([email protected]) North Lake County Hospital Tax You have probably read the "Right Side of The Lake" attack article on Marilyn Bainter. This is not the first such attack, but it is the first that the TEA Party has been mentioned. I feel compelled write a response. Here are the facts as I see them. Always follow the money First, who is the "Right Side of The Lake"? It is written and published by Don Magruder, manager of RoMac Lumber. Follow... Read more →

Tavares, FL Court Hearing on Lawsuit Against North Lake County Hospital District Extended

Tavares, FL - Jan 21, 2011 - Update 3: Yesterday was the first public court hearing before the court Judge in Lake County regarding Marilyn & Stan Bainter's Lawsuit challenging the Constitutionality of the regulations establishing the North Lake County Hospital District and their legal right to collect 1 mill in property taxes from North Lake residents for the last 20 years. After 3 hours of presentations from Bainter's attorney and from THREE of four attorneys representing three hospitals and also the Board, the Judge and the attorneys agreed to schedule another afternoon session. That will be 1-3 months in the future and we will post that date here. The Judge has made several suggestions that any "order" he issues after hearing all the arguments will probably be appealed by the losing side, so he is making sure all the details are covered. The courtroom was about filled. Channel 9 was there with a camera, and reporter Bernt Petersen, and reporter Steven Hudack was there from the Orlando Sentinel. There were probably about 100 people present, including senior management from Waterman, Leesburg and Lifeline Hospitals, plus over half were from Bainter supporters (i.e. taxpayers and Tea Party members, members of... Read more →

Lake School District hasn't tracked costs and losses per child in Charter Schools

I attended an afternoon Lake County School District workshop today and it went for several hours which I will describe this weekend in another post here . But, for 3+ years I have been suggesting they needed to calculate the loss per child for charter schools, and today they had a presentation and the losses may be bigger than even I thought. The major reason is that State law says the School Districts can only charge a 5% admin fee and must pass through all the rest of the per chiid funding from the State to the charter schools. It turns out that for the 10 charter schools, the School District is only allowed by the State to keep 5% of the annual per child collections for the first 250 kids at a school. But several of the schools have up to 800 kids, so the School District doesn't get ANY funds for administration for various services they must provide to the charter schools for any kids over the 250 count Until last year the cutoff was 500, but now the law lowered the cutoff limit to 250. That State "unfunded mandate" cost the School District a reduction of about... Read more →

UPDATED: Two Big, Disappointing Decisions at Lake County Board of Commissioners Meeting Today

Updated Fri, Jan. 14 with revised info and "added comments" at end of this document on how the Lake County Board of Commissioners could indicate they actually have taxpayer fiscal interests at heart: Tue., Jan 12, 2011, Tavares, FL: Today's Lake County Board meeting was a "workshop" where they did NOT allow public input, and it started late at 9:30 or so and went to 2pm without a lunch break. Two disappointing major "consensus" decisions were made. Who is pulling the Puppet strings??? 1. Emergency Operations Center: Four of five Commissioners voiced a "consensus" vbte, including new Commissioners Leslie Campione, Jennifer Hill, Welton Cadwell, and Sean Parks (Jimmy Conner voted NO), to continue spending funds for the architect and a consultant to develop definitive costs for the Emergency Operations and "Communications" Center - was estimated to be $11-million, now maybe $9-million. Reading between the lines, it seems at least four Commissioners will approve the $9-million project once costs are better defined. This was a total reversal of Campone and Parks stands earlier. About half, or $4.5-million would come from "free money" (my words - Federal and other grants), and the other half, $4.5-million from local taxes, such as obligating future... Read more →

NumbersUSA.org - A perspective on justifying illegal immigrants into the USA

You have to see this video if you want to understand the immigration problem and effect on world poverty. It give you a new perspective on the justification to allow more illegal or legal immigrants into the US. So when someone says we should let illegal immigrants in, or be citizens, remember this...and the harm it does to existing citizens... Watch it. 6 minutes. http://numbersusa.org/ vj Read more →

Ohio Schools Business Manager to be Sentenced for Bribery, Embezzlement & Theft

I add this article as a case study of one type of corruption possible in local government or School Districts. In this case, a School District Business Manager apparently was able to embezzle funds from the sale of school owned construction equipment. vj AKRON -- Former Maple Heights schools official Steve Canepa, who most recently worked for the West Geauga schools, will be sentenced Monday in federal court on Cuyahoga County corruption-related counts tied to his former Maple Heights job. Canepa, 43, of Mantua, was charged with three counts related to bribery, and one each for theft and mail fraud. He is admitting the theft charge but pleaded not guilty when he was first charged with all five counts. He will appear Monday before U.S. District Judge John Adams. His attorney, Mark Marein, said Canepa only committed one of the five crimes he is accused of. Prosecutors claim Canepa embezzled proceeds from the 2008 sale of a boom lift used for construction and owned by the Maple Heights school system. Canepa resigned from West Geauga on Aug. 23 but had been on medical leave since May. Canepa cited personal matters for his departure and thanked the school board and others... Read more →

Florida Grand Jury Report issued on "Public Corruption" - Will Governor Scott Implement It?

Note: A Florida state wide Grand Jury established by Charlie Crist just issued their "First Interim Report" on "A Study of Public Corruption in Florida and Recommended Solutions". A number of case histories in the report are related to corruption committed by County officials in various Florida Counties. I am posting a link to the full report here and a short news article, and will add my comments HERE later. Note: The full 127 page grand jury report is HERE. vj ================================================================= Will corruption grand jury bring charges, change or just hot air? Interim report reads as a plaintive cry of frustration January 05, 2011|Michael Mayo, Sun Sentinel Columnist When a grand jury issues a report instead of indictments, it can be seen as running a white towel up the flagpole. For nearly a year, a Fort Lauderdale-based grand jury has looked into statewide public corruption. So far, the only tangible result is a 124-page "interim report" released during the holiday lull. Reading it is a depressing reminder why few arrests might follow, even if Gov. Rick Scott extends the term for another six months beyond February. The report is informative, filled with concrete proposals to toughen penalties, close loopholes... Read more →

Will FL Gov Rick Scott's Efforts to Run Florida like a Business Work?

The Orlando Sentinel had a front page article HERE on Scott's aim to run Florida like a business. Here are my comments about the article: After four years of writing a blog ( www.FiscalRangers.com ) on encouraging the local Lake County government and School District to be more efficient and run like a business (better contracts that don't give away the farm, use of metrics to evaluate cost per service, no sole source contracting, use of sound economic data to make decisions, etc), I suggest that Scott will have problems with the entrenched staff who won't change internal processes unless fired. He can appoint leaders over the various Departments, but unless they have some experienced business process troubleshooters who find the internal process problems, define solutions and monitor implementation, there won't be much progress. They will constantly tell him "there are no resources" to track spending effectiveness, and 3 years down the line he will find no improvement. As an example, the local Lake County government lists "work measurements" in their departmental budget sections, but they only report activity counts like phone calls received or fire report incidents , but don't calculate trends of costs per service, expect plans for... Read more →