Fiscal Rangers

Florida County Activists Ask Lake County FiscalRangers for Help to Resolve Corruption

Activists and TeaParty members in other Florida Counties are aware of FiscalRangers. We just got a query from one County activist group asking how they can stop corruption in their County. They listed a number of officials and issues, so here is what I sent them, and I expect to talk to them later. Vance Jochim ================================================== The Florida Grand Jury published a big report on Corruption in Florida last December and Pam Bondi has done nothing to market it to the legislature to get the recommendations implemented, even though her Attorney General Dept. runs the Grand Jury investigations. The Florida Auditor General has no “resources” to initiate citizen requests for audits. They mostly focus on CPA type financial and regulatory compliance audits, and not audits for efficiency, effectiveness or to detect and fix corruption. Almost all local government oversight is left up to local County agencies and officials. The legislative Audit Committee will not initiate citizen requests for audits, which are sent to the Auditor General, BUT they will do so if asked by a legislator. So, you need to have a legislator request an audit like what you want, and the AG may do it . But, the... Read more →

Palm Beach Schools inspector general position draws 23 viable candidates

Schools inspector general position draws 23 viable candidates. Read more →

Jim Krakowski Comments on Apr. 2 Lake County School Board Meeting

Guest Columnist: Jim Krakowski =================================================== My comments / observation regarding April 2, 2012 Lake County (FL) School Board Meeting. (Jim Krakowski 4/4/12) - Krakowski is active in the South Lake County 912/Tea Party April 2nd “special” school board meeting focused on three issues … one dealing with finances, one with operations and one with education. Finance: There are approximately $16 million of bonds funded by sales taxes that can be “re-financed” at a much lower rate. According to the districts CFO (Carol MacLeod) these bonds have a current interest rate of 3% - 5% and can be refinanced at 1.22%. The district currently has over $39 million of funds that are earmarked for capital projects. Impact fees generated these funds. I asked “… is it possible to pay off the $16 million in bonds and use the sales tax revenue stream to fund the replacement of school buses or HVAC systems that are in need of repairs or replacement …” I was informed that none of the $39 million can be used to retire the $16 million because the purposes of each are different. Apparently one fund cannot be used to retire bonds that had another purpose. What does not... Read more →

Voter Fraud Method Disclosed by Ft. Myers NBC TV Investigation - May Exist in ALL Florida Counties

FiscalRangers.com Alert - Tavares, FL April 4, 2012 Florida Voter Fraud Method Detected by Ft. Myers NBC TV station investigation, which finds County Elections Departments not preventing NON-US citizens from voting. Problem could exist in ALL Florida counties. Note: We will post updates here on this page as we get them. vj A TV investigator for NBC Channel 2 in the Ft. Myers area found that there was no prevention technique to prevent non-citizens from registering to vote, and he found over 100 who had told the courts they could not be on a jury because they were non-citizens, but they also VOTED. Then he checked the voter roles and found over 100 who claimed non-citizenship to get out of jury duty who HAD voted, some for many years without detection by the Elections Supt. The reporter asked the Elections Supt. If they did any cross checks with the courts to verify addresses, or to detect non-citizens, and apparently it is not done in Florida. He discussed the issue with Election Superintendents of Collier and Lee Counties. The TV report was dated Feb. 2, but we just discovered it. The reporter did not investigate whether the people actually lied when... Read more →

Complexity of State Ballot Measures Affects YES votes, But Is Florida Affected?

An interesting study says that many ballot measures are written at the Master's Degree level and voters skip them due to the complex wording. Wyoming requires that a majority of ALL voters must say yes to pass a referendum, not just a majority of those who voted on the issue. They figure if a voter skips an issue, it is worded too hard to understand since the average American has an eighth grade reading level. Here is an excerpt from the Wall St. Journal's review of the issue: Another totally different new study rates the readability of ballot measures. The study is part of the plain language movement. Note to Floridians: "When Charlie Crist of Flordia took office as governor in January 2007, one of his first acts was to issue a plain langugage executive order . Florida now has an entire site devoted to plain language." HOWEVER, the links now go to Gov. Rick Scott's website and go to an error page. We did find that the FL DCS has a Plain Language page HERE. We could not find if the Plain Language movement is required for State ballot measures, however. Researchers with the Plain Language Action and Information... Read more →