Tavares, FL - July 7, 2011 - UPDATED Jul 9 to add more School District meeting info
This is an update on:
1. The recent meeting of the Lake County, Florida Board of Commissioners
2. Next week's Lake County Board workshop on Tuesday, July 12. BE SURE to READ my ACTION requests and go to the meeting.
3. A brief update on the Lake County School Board issues and all THREE meetings for them next week.
READ the next meeting section below on the July 12 workshop, PLAN to go to it, AND act on our ACTION REQUESTS described below. Important issues will be discussed at the workshop.
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1. Recent Lake County Board Meeting - last Tuesday, July 5th - Find the agenda HERE with attachments, if any, under "tabs"
Tab 23: Firefighter's Union Agreement - The Board snuck through an approval listed in the agenda tab 23 as "Recommend approval ... of the attached Collective Bargaining Agreement" for a new one year fire fighter's union wage and benefit agreement without any prior public meetings. The Board had several SECRET "executive sessions" to discuss the contract, but no public meetings. They posted the 55+ page contract, but NO INDICATION or summary of the changes in wages or benefits. Verbal discussion at the meeting indicates that benefits and salaries continued the same from this year, thus there were no added requirements to contribute a larger percentage towards medical plan costs. (Which the Lake County School Board DID do). There was no executive summary of changes, so there could have been changes in wages or work rules but they were not disclosed. WE RECOMMEND that in the future, the County Commissioners hold public hearings of bargaining sessions like the School Board does, AND provide a clearly understandable overview table of ALL contract changes AND the fiscal impact of each by person, and in total for each line item.
Tab 24: Extension or Renewal of Medical Plan agreements for 1200 Lake County Employees. Again, no added employee contributions were required for health benefits. There was an excellent memo attached to the tab describing details of the changes, and fiscal impact was an added $761,663. However, the verbal presentation by the benefits consultant at the meeting ALSO disclosed that planned expenses for this next year for health plans will EXCEED planned revenues by over $2-million, which they are taking from a separate reserve account for the health plan. I will research this further to understand what caused such a huge jump in expenses. RECOMMENDATION: if you talk to a Commissioner, ask them why they are not increasing required employee contributions like private industry to be up to 15% of office visit costs (which is in addition to the existing partial payment of contributions and co-pay requirements). Additionally, such a big issue should be discussed in detail in a preceding public workshop and compared to private industry practices. ACTION Planned: I will research further to understand the cause for the excess $2-million expenses. In summary, while unemployment is high, property values are down, the economy is weak, the Commissioners did not reduce benefit costs or even compare them to private business benchmarks. Government employees should not receive benefits exceeting the normal levels provided by private businesses. ACTION REQUEST: If you AGREE, ask your County Commissioners why they do not control benefit costs in line with private industry.
2. NEXT MEETING - Lake County Commissioner "Workshop" at 9am on Tuesday, July 12, and the AGENDA is HERE. SCHEDULE THIS AND BE THERE!!!
Workshops are used to inform Commissioners about more complex issues, then any official decision is made at regular meetings. Thus, Workshops are where the REAL action is regarding complex or big policy and spending decisions. Unlike regular meeting agendas, there are no attachments to workshop agendas, and NO public input is allowed at workshops, which is a point of contention. Thus, they could have a proponent for EMS, EOC or the Sheriff's department advocating certain spending positions, but the public is not allowed to provide alternatives in public input statements. THEN, the actual decision will go to a regular meeting agenda, most likely in the "consent agenda" (no discussion), and again, the public cannot comment except at the beginning of the entire regular meeting. Many times, the agenda description is purposely vague so the public doesn't always know the purpose. For instance, at the last workshop, the $8.5-million Emergency Operating Center budget was discussed but was buried in "Capital Project Update" presentation at the END of it.
Conclusion: TRANSPARENCY, access to details, and ability to provide public input on workshop agenda items is POOR, and will continue until Board Chair Jennifer Hill changes the policy.
ACTIONS REQUESTED:
1. WRITE your commissioners, especially Chair Jennifer Hill, and demand public input be allowed at ALL public meetings, including workshops and non-zoning issues at the Commissioner's zoning meeting. DEMAND that public input ALSO be allowed at EACH agenda line item as it is discussed like the School District does. CLICK HERE to find where to submit comments to your commissioners. Since you vote for ALL of them, you can send a comment to ALL of them.
2. COME to the meeting with a SIGN that says "WHY does Commissioner Hill REFUSE to allow Public Input!". The meeting is in the normal Lake County Commission chambers on Main St.
3. COME to the meeting with public input notes to ask Commissioners before the meeting and during breaks, or email your comments to them regarding public input, and the issues below. ASK them why they don't allow public input by line item like the much larger School Board does.
THE WORKSHOP AGENDA ITEMS WHERE YOU WON'T BE ALLOWED TO PROVIDE PUBLIC INPUT
1. "Agenda Update" - we might see them add some controversial issue at the last minute, so don't be surprised.
2. EMS (Emergency Medical Services) Budget presentation - Their total budget was over $20-million, but will be reduced since Sumter County is pulling out. It appears they will also discuss the planned performance audit of EMS and approval of the "consultant's contract". This will be interesting to see who gets it and how much for what type of work. It is the opinion of some that EMS is getting too much in taxes anyway, so we will see what happens. The EMS website is HERE.
3. PRESENTATION BY SHERIFF REGARDING BOARD REQUESTS TO REDUCE HIS BUDGET - The Board of Commissioners have asked the Sheriff to reduce his budget by another 5% or about $3-million. This will be an interesting presentation, since he has not reduced staffing much in the last four years, and his $57-60 million budget hasn't changed much in the four years either (per the 2010-2011 budget book). Last night (Wednesday), the local North Lake Tea party hosted Sheriff Gary Borders in a presentation, and he was grilled a "bit" about the need to reduce his budget in line with other County operations. The problem is that everyone likes the Sheriff, respects the work they do, but they have not cut their budgets much in line with reduced tax revenues in the last four years, while the Board's operations have dropped 100 positions and reduced their budget to about 70% of what it was four years ago.
4. Budget Discussion - At the last update workshop on the budget, the shortfall for next year was $16-million, with some plans from staff to offset the shortfalls. This presentation should be more details on alternative ways to reduce budget shortfalls. So far, the Board has said they will not consider tax increases, but you never know. Also, since the School unions filed a lawsuit to reverse the required 3% pension contributions, that could affect County pension budgets and they might lose planned savings once the lawsuit is decided.
3. Lake County School Board Update & My Opinion:
There were no meetings by the School Board this week, and I have given up on them, so I don't plan to attend many meetings. There are three spendthrifts on the Board who just keep spending to support staff and union requests...and they won't take action on improving some internal audit and fiscal issues presented to them earlier. AND, there is no electronic version of the detailed budget available without paying $100 to get a printed copy. They approved wage increases for all employees and did not disclose the details, even though they have a $22-million budget shortfall. So, next year, when they REALLY run out of money, it will be a fiscal fiasco. Word is no one wants to run against the incumbents in the upcoming elections because the fiscal mess created by the current three big spenders (Brandeburg, Stivender and Fischer) won't be easy to fix. None of them seem to understand or support strong fiscal analysis and budget reduction methods used by private industry (and staff doesn't usually provide the data in relation to economic trends or private industry benchmarks), so they make decisions based on emotions. This is the downside of democracy when you elect officials who have no interest in tough budget analysis and controls. An example is the spending on the free staff medical clinics or that Stivender and Brandeburg wanted to spend $2-million on the recent elementary school addition rather than the much less expensive portables in this economy. Expect them to try and increase taxes with a special sales tax that is available to them. Nothing much will change until Brandeburg and Stivender are replaced. However, if they start implementing stronger budget cuts and controls by challenging staff for better information and acting on solid data analysis, not emotion, like what happened during the Grassy Lake addition decisions, I might change my mind.
Summary of Lake County School Board meetings for next week - I would attend the Retreat on Tuesday, and the Workshop on Monday first... You can always find the agendas on the "Board Docs" link OR on the main website at http://www.lake.k12.fl.us/lakeschools/site/default.asp
Mon, Jul 11 - 3PM WORKSHOP on "Budget Review" (no supporting documents on agenda ) See Board Docs for agenda, but it only is for the budget review. So, if you want to see what the current budget shortfall is, and staff recommendations to offset it, go to this meeting and decide if you think there is adequate SOUND financial analysis to justify decisions, or all the "justification" is emotional.
Mon, July 11 - 6pm Regular Meeting - see Board Docs for agenda.
TUESDAY, JULY 12 - Board RETREAT - - held offsite at 200 W. Golflinks Ave near HWY 19 in Eustis. They will be discussing:
- Board Docs webinar training
- The audit process (I assume this is a discussion about the need to change from standard CPA type financial internal audits to performance audits). The Board pulled the contract for the incumbent District Auditor and only extended it 90 days until the new proposed direction was discussed. I agree they need much better, faster and clearer internal audit objectives to focus on efficiency, effectiveness and economy (aka Performance Audits) - however, as mentioned above, three of the Board members don't seem to understand the need to have proficient performance audits in a timely manner.
- FCAT Scores - come and understand this year's method for calculating them - FCAT calculations seem to change every year...
- Strategic Plan Update - this is the main strategic plan for the School District, defined by Supt. Dr. Moxley and staff. Come and see what the hot buttons are this coming year.
- Supt. Evaluation Instrument - the form used to evaluate the Superintendent, Dr. Susan Moxley. I am not sure if this is the actual evaluation results, or revision of the form, since they didn't clarify which in the agenda.
- Board Watch List - This list was started by prior Board member Larry Metz because the Board previously didn't have a method to track all the decisions and directions they decided at meetings.
- Board Projects - Could be interesting - topics like Jim Miller's new campaign for different election district boundaries, school uniforms, free food, who knows might be discussed here...
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(Note: If you have friends who need to follow Lake County government activities from a taxpayer advocacy standpoint, please forward this to them. Tell them to email us to be added to the distribution list, AND LIKE our "FiscalRangers" Facebook page. Sane or fact based comments can be posted on the FiscalRangers blog below this article. However, insane comments will be deleted. )
Vance Jochim
FiscalRangers AT comcast DOT com
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