Fiscal Rangers

Leesburg Better Watch out for those Smart Meters

Leesburg is planning to install a whole mess of "smart" electric meters in local residences. Without comment, I suggest you pass this article on to their leaders. Aren't we tired of sales people and lobbyists pushing expensive services and projects on to elected officials and staff without adequate research. Things like Motorola Radio Systems, Waste processing plants, Repairing railroad tracks, free medical centers for ONLY local School District government employees, smart meters, etc. Here it is: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/bc-politics/a-dumb-way-to-introduce-smart-meters/article2001596/ And, read the comments! vj Read more →

Daily Commercial article on legitimacy of North Lake County Hospital District Tax

Written by Brad Buck, the article disclosed the tax reform efforts of Marilyn Bainter to improve oversight and constitutional legitimacy of the tax. You can read the article HERE. We noticed that all three pictures in the Daily Commercial were of recipients of care, or salaries from the hospitals, and there were no pictures of taxpayers in foreclosure who maybe could use the taxes now given to two local hospitals without any rules at all on how the funds are to be spent. Other than quotes from Bainter, no other supporters of tax reform were quoted. The tax generates about $10-million split between local Leesburg and Waterman hospitals, and the article did not disclose that both hospitals are PRIVATE non-profit corporations which have reported significant profits recently or in the past. It also did not discuss that non-profit hospitals are SUPPOSED to absorb expenses for indigent care in return for escaping all taxes waived for non-profits. Thus, the hospitals are getting duplicate benefits: They do not have to pay property and other taxes because they are non-profits and must absorb indigent care costs, but then they get payments from the Hospital tax AGAIN for the indigent expenses. And, we should... Read more →

Georgia Passes Arizona Style Regulations to Curb Illegal Immigration

The big issue here is that Georgia's new law mandates that businesses with 10 or more employees must use the E-Verify system to confirm the legal immigration status of employees. Here in Lake County, I noticed that the Lake County Government recently modified some Federal contracts to mandage usage of E-verify. It was done quietly using the "consent agenda" and the County and State still do not require it. But, if they are using Federal funds for a project, they are required to use it. Note: This article is from a Marietta, Georga newspaper, thus it also discusses "Cobb" county aspects of the new law. Favorite quote: "Taxpayer-subsidized, black market labor is only cheap for employers. It's a huge expense for the nation," King said. Moreover, to threaten a state boycott for simply enforcing the law is extortion, he said. Golick said the radical left sought to demonize him and the bill's supporters at every turn as they worked to pass the bill. "They continue to be oblivious to the fact that law-abiding citizens bitterly resent those who break our laws to get here, and then have the nerve to demand public benefits as if they're entitled to them -... Read more →

Lake County School Board Avoids Screaming Grassy Hill Mob and Saves $2-million

(Note: This is from memory, but I think most of it is accurate...vj) Monday, April 18, 2011 - Tavares, FL - It isn't easy, but today, at a 2pm Lake County School District workshop, your Lake County School Board, the School Superintendent Dr. Moxley and several staff members including Harry Fix, found a way to avoid a Grassy Hill elementary parent riot and still save $2-million. The parent riot picture at left is not from Grassy Lake elementary! Remember that issue of Grassy Lake elementary, and how they were over capacity, and initially staff wanted the School Board to spend $2-million to add more class space? The Board was ready about two months ago to approve the $2-million based upon staff recommendations, and school staff talked about how they couldn't use the music room, and other reasons. Then Board member Tod Howard, a true fiscal conservative and Fiscal Ranger hero, used out of the box thinking and asked why couldn't they re-assign the excess 100-125 kids to nearby schools that had available space. Board member Jim Miller agreed. It took Tod several meetings before Board member Kyleen Fischer, rather than voting with big spending Rosanne Brandeburg and Debbie Stivender to... Read more →

Dick Morris: Inflation is Coming, and I Agree Obama & Democrats Should be Blamed

The Federal government now borrows $40-BILLION per week to pay interest on all the debt they have approved. When someone says there is a $13-TRILLION or so deficit, that means the Feds have sold debt and agreed to pay interest to GET all that money. OR, they PRINTED new money which increases the money supply, which causes inflation. Obama and the Democrats have done both. And, as interest goes up, I am betting much of the debt has cost of living escalators, so interest due to China and other buyers of US bonds and debt instruments will rise as interest rates rise. I lived through the last great inflation bubble when President Jimmy Carter ran up costs and implemented all those liberal programs that run up inflation. That was when I thought I had a GOOD DEAL buying a house at 9.5% interest rates, and then the rates went up to almost 20% due to inflation. Recently, I have watched Obama implementing many inflation causing practices, including "printing money", and excessive borrowing money to fund all his social programs. Now, inflation is starting to hit us, not only due to unrest in oil producing countries, but subsidizing food crops like... Read more →

Texas Sunset Commission Challenges Reason for Government Agencies

Tavares, FL - April 15, 2011 - This is what we need in Lake County and Florida. A commission like one in Texas with a responsibility to review the policies and programs of more than 150 government agencies every 12 years. The Texas Sunset Advisory Commission questions the need for more than 150 agencies, looks for potential duplication of other public services or programs, and considers new and innovative changes to improve each agency's operations and activities. The Commission seeks public input through hearings on every agency under Sunset review and recommends actions on each agency to the full Legislature. In most cases, agencies under Sunset review are automatically abolished unless legislation is enacted to continue them. I found out about this Commission while reading THIS story on how the North Texas Tollway Authority is facing fraud allegations, and people are calling for this commission to review them. There is even a menu item "How to Participate" which describes specifically how the public can become involved. This is a great idea for some Lake County Board member to build their fiscal conservative chops. Create a commission like this for Lake County, and implement it to question departments and programs. UPDATE:... Read more →

Update on Florida Commission on Review of Taxpayer Funded Hospital Districts

We have written about challenges to the local North Lake County Hospital District for the last two years. But, a new challenge about their value came up recently when Governor Rick Scott published an Executive Order 11-63 which is HERE, and it created the Florida Commission on Review of Taxpayer Funded Hospital Districts. HERE is the official press release from Scott's office on the Commission. HERE is a longer article on the Commission from HealthNews Florida. The Governor appointed the head of Florida Taxwatch (website HERE) to be the head of the Commission and one reason may be that they published a report in 2009 (which is HERE) that was titled "Florida’s Fragmented Hospital Taxing District System in Need of Reexamination". I read the Executive Order, and it lists 8 members of the Commission, and lists 7 tasks for the Commission to accomplish. However,five of the tasks are specifically targeted to "government operated" hospitals which do not exist in Lake county. All the hospitals in Lake County, including the two that benefit from the funds collected by the North Lake County Hospital District are private corporations, and not run by government. Apparently, there are some other Florida counties that DO... Read more →

Understanding Local Corporate Welfare & Identifying True Fiscal Conservatives

Tavares, FL - April 13, 2011 - Today, I gave a presentation at the Lake Federation Republican Women's Club in Tavares. It was on these two topics: - Understanding Corporate Welfare and Local Lake County Examples - Identifying Behaviors of True Fiscal Conservatives (vs liberals or Republicans in Name Only). Attached is the Powerpoint slide presentation. It has over 20 specific fiscal conservative actions that I recommend for elected officials to show they actually are fiscal conservatives. Download 2011-04-13 LFRWC Preso Enjoy. Vance Jochim FiscalRangers AT Comcast DOT net Read more →

Senator Paula Dockery on Sunrail Railroad Subsidy

Tavares, FL - Apr. 13, 2011 - The Lake County, FL County Board of Commissioners voted recently to subsidize the repairs of the privately (not public) owned CSX rail lines that run from Apopka to Eustis. They voted to spend over $1-million of their funds for the project which will cost taxpayers a total of over $16.5-million (Florida State kicks in about $13-million). The firm leasing the CSX line, Florida Atlantic Railway, will only pitch in about $1.5-million. We call that corporate welfare. We received the following memo from Sarah Hardy, a Legislative Assistant in Senator Paula Dockery's office on a related subject - the Sunrail subsidized rail project. Dockery has voiced objections to earlier attempts to use taxpayer funds to subsidize railroads. vj ================================================ Hi, Mr. Jochim, Thanks for your continued fiscal vigilance on behalf of the taxpayers. I really enjoyed your “on the hunt” illustration in the email. It’s great. Remember to mention that Orange County Commissioners recently voted to spend $18 million taxpayer dollars for infrastructure improvements on a private railroad corridor between Apopka and Eustis. This is the rail line that The Lake-Sumter Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) Executive Director, TJ Fish, keeps asking for support from... Read more →

Guest Editorial: Are Taxpayer Subsidized Commuter Railroads Justified?

(Note: This subject of subsidizing rail lines is auspicious, because Lake County Governments recently voted to spend over $16.5-million in taxpayer funds to repair CSX privately owned rail lines in Lake County to facilitate commuter and freight rail operations without any reports showing facts to justify the expense - see our separate posts on this. VJ) From Richard Riker 3/21/2011 In December of 2009 Florida Legislature passed legislation by 27-10 establishing Sun Rail. This was done in a special session in an Obama-Pelosi hush and rush style. Why was this done in the “dead of night” without public disclosure? Simple, it would not have passed in the light of day. An initial impact of the passage was, as in most cases, financial, the legislature paid CSX Rail $10.5 million for track. This total is far more that the national average cost for track at $500,000 per mile. What are some of the other overall deterrents to rail transit? Ones that our legislatures should have considered before they voted for it. To begin with, and maybe foremost, only two rail lines in the entire world have recovered their capital cost Paris-Lyon and Tokyo-Osaka. No rail transit line in this country comes... Read more →

Florida Government Agencies should be Mandated to Use Charts Like This

Tavares, FL - Apr. 11, 2011 - In Lake County, FL , I have been watching union negotiations for wages. I have been preaching for maybe two years that the Administration and Board of the Lake County School District (and the Board of the County Commissioners) should develop statistics like the chart referenced on the link below. http://thathero.com/2011/04/11/oea-shared-sacrifice/ It is about Ohio wage patterns, and shows average wages of both union and private industry workers. Such charts should be mandatory for use when any government agency starts setting wage and benefits for government workers. Now, the chart is for Ohio, which is not a right to work State (Florida is), so the disparities between union and private wages are larger than you would find in Florida, but the idea is that no goverment elected officials should approve any wage and benefit increases without comparing trends like this, and for unemployment, benefits, pensions, etc. Government employees need to be paid within reason, and not excessively. vj Read more →

Lauren Ritchie Publishes New Column over HIGH wages of Waterman Hospital Management

Orlando Sentinel's Lauren Ritchie published another article related to the North Lake County Hospital District, and focused on the extreme compensation received by management at Waterman Hospital and how they still wanted about $5-million of taxpayer funds when they reported "profits" of $18-million. Read it if you want to understand why reform is needed over the Hospital District. The picture is in reference to the insatiable appetite of the Hospital District for using local taxpayer money without any oversight or clear justification. A referendum is needed to let the public vote whether to continue the North Lake County Hospital District and let them continue taking about $10-million in taxpayer funds and splitting it between Leesburg Regional Medical Center and Waterman Hospital without any specific rules on how the funds or spent, or methods to ensure they are only spent according to the rules (which don't exist now). http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/os-lk-lauren-ritchie-hospital-adminis20110408,0,2283450.column Please FORWARD this to any friend who might find it interesting and wants to monitor local Lake County government fiscal issues. This is the local watchdog news you won't ever see in the Daily Commercial or Orlando Sentinel (except Lauren's column, sometimes). JOIN our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/FiscalRangers . EMAIL us with... Read more →

Lake County Board Approves Builder Welfare 15 month School Impact Fee Moratorium

7pm update - added estimates of potential lost revenue to the School District. 2:20 pm - Updated with added thoughts in a PS section at the end of this document. Tavares, FL - Apr. 5, 2011 - The Board of Commissioners (BCC) of the Lake County Government, after a one hour discussion, voted 5 to 0 against existing property owners and the School Board by more than doubling the length of time for a proposed moratorium on School impact fees. The approved time frame is from Jan. 1, 2011 (retroactive) to April 1, 2012, or 15 months. The Board essentially voted for Builder welfare over homeowner and education interests. School impact fees are around $9,324 per NEW residence, and the funds are intended for school construction due to increased population allowed by the addition of new homes. They are a major source of funding for the Schools to build new schools and to meet demands of population growth. HERE is the link to the list of all impact fees. The value of existing and foreclosed homes was therefore just reduced by $9,000 or more because new homes can be sold for lower values to compete with the existing and foreclosed... Read more →

Once Again, the North Lake Hospital District Constitutionality Lawsuit Hearing was Postponed

Notice - The court hearing that was to be held this week for the Constitutionality lawsuit against the North Lake County Hospital District was postponed by Judge Singletary during a phone conference today. Apparently the 14 or so attorneys for the hospitals and the District Board defense could not get their act together AGAIN and asked for a postponement to this "summer". This trial has been going on over a year and this is about the 5th postponement. Or, they just figured they wanted to bill more hours before losing the case. You don't think it was because they read Lauren Ritchie's columns on the District and the news that Governor Scott has launched an investigation of special Hospital Tax Districts, do you?? You choose which excuse sounds best. Read more →

Quote from Plato for taxpayers

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. Plato Subscribe to fiscalrangers.com and "Like" our "FiscalRangers" Facebook page, and add it to your favorite links. Read more →

Orlando Sentinel Editorial on Need to Review Justification of Hospital Districts

Tavares, FL - April 2, 2011 - Yesterday the Orlando Sentinel published a strong editorial supporting Governor Rick Scott's plan to review the justification for Hospital Tax Districts. It followed three columns by columnist Lauren Ritchie regarding poor oversight and accountability for funds collected via property taxes for the Hospital Districts. I have been covering the local North Lake County Hospital District since 2008. They collect about $10-million and split it between two local large hospitals, Waterman (part of the Adventist Chain), and Leesburg Regional Medical Center. The regulations that established the Hospital District and taxing authority are being challenged in court due to changes made without following Constitutional requirements. The regulations have absolutely NO clear rules on where the funds can be spent, so the Hospitals can actually lump the funds into their general fund and buy pink flamingos for the front lawn if they want. Even very small charitable foundations have better rules and procedures than the Hospital District regulations subject to Florida State oversight (there are NO OVERSIGHT requirements because some of the local Lake County legislators take contributions from Health and Hospital related sources). I was a corporate internal auditor and anti-corruption investigator for many years... Read more →