Tavares, FL - December 7, 2012
The following article was distributed via our email system on last Monday, Dec. 3, 2012. It described agenda issues for the Dec. 4th, 2012 Lake County Board Meeting. I am posting it here for the record, and including follow up comments in BOLD RED on what happened at the meeting.
Both Orlando Fox TV and WFTV Channel 9 were there and Fox interviewed Board Chair Leslie Campione about a gun control issue on the agenda, and Channel 9 interviewed ME about the Sheriff's Budget. There is also a link to an Orlando Sentinel article on the budget discussions. Scroll down to read the follow up comments and links to the online videos of both interviews and the Sentinel article.
Vance Jochim
FiscalRangers AT Comcast DOT net
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You can get the Tuesday, Dec. 4th 9am meeting agenda HERE. After the meeting, the same link takes you to the main agenda tracking page, and tabs AT THE TOP let you look at "Actions" which list each agenda item and the official action taken. Look at each tab to find what you want. Plus, you can click on the video at the top left and watch the meeting video.
Follow UP: AND if you look at the left column, click the "View" button, you can watch a video of the entire Dec. 4th session. This week's meeting is one long almost 4-hour vidoe, including the Sheriff's Budget presentation at the end.. See our comment at the bottom if you want to understand where to go to access the agenda. The agenda numbering systems are so confusing in the new software that you will need to find the sections yourself to read attachments.
Follow Up: For some reason, the new agenda software does not show individual clips of specific agenda item discussions, so you have to scroll through the single, long video to find what you want. The Sheriff's presentation is the last 60 minutes in the video file.
The priority issues on the agenda are:
1. (see section I). The Board is electing a new Chair for next year. We believe that only ONE choice should be considered, and that is to re-elect Leslie Campione to continue the momentum she has established as a leader for the County. Sean Parks needs more seasoning. Welton Cadwell was Chair for FIVE years running and has had his time - besides, he doesn't initiate any projects to improve the County. Tim Sullivan has the leadership experience but is brand new and will need 2 years of seasoning. That leaves Jimmy Conner who is probably due for Chairmanship, but we believe he needs to wait at least one year longer so Campione can build on all the projects she has initiated in the last year. It takes a year to learn the job, then the second year is when growth comes. If you watched the State of the County video , many projects were initiated by Campione, and none of the other Commissioners was anywhere as active. So, for the good of the County, the Commissioners should nominate and re-elect Campione, and then perhaps Conner as Vice Chair for the future.
Unfortunately for the taxpayer, the agenda calls for the election BEFORE public input, so if you have an opinion, you should notify your County Commissioner, because you won't be allowed to provide public input until AFTER the election.
Follow Up: Leslie Campione WAS re-elected at Chair and Jimmie Conners as Vice-Chair, as we recommended. They agreed Jimmie would be the new Chair next year.
2. Thanks to Board Chair Leslie Campione, the Board is having an afternoon 1:30 pm public hearing FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER to discuss the Sheriff's Budget to plan for NEXT fiscal year (2013-2014) when funds will be tight. Will the Board roll over and not ask tough questions, or will they continue to take needed budget cuts out of the hide of other County programs like they did for the last four years? The Sheriff now gets about 50% of the County total budget. This meeting is part of the string of budget planning hearings to discuss future plans, and no decisions will be made until the middle of next year. PS: All those who got upset earlier about possible early 2013 cuts to their programs (libraries, buses, etc) should chill out. Now the plan is to follow the existing budget and plan for the future fiscal year.
Follow Up: Sheriff Borders gave a 60 minute dog & pony show (see our item 9 below for more details and a where the video can be viewed) and did not discuss the actual budget. To me the presentation was NOT oriented to budget issues, but a feel good press relations presentation, so no insight into budget issues was discussed and the Board did not ask.
3. This agenda, consent section V1 for Community Services, continues the questionable practice of giving LOCAL tax funds to favored local charities, including $47,000 to Human Services "Feel Good" Grants and $150,000 for Children's Services grants. So, rather than use the funds for roads, etc. the Board picks favorite charities and gives funds to them. We don't believe that is the role of local government to pick winners and losers or contribute to charities, and this type of local "grants" need to be discontinued. Our County will be facing big budget cuts, especially since Obama was elected, and they need to rein in the spending and start here.
Follow Up: The grants were approved, but Chair Leslie Campione disagreed with us and said she thought it was a good idea to have the grants. The decisions on the grants were made by a staff committee, not the Board, so at least the selection was objective. One member of the public complained in public input about their group not getting funds, and were told the committee has to choose among many applicants, which they did.
4. Parking Funds - There are two Facilities Consent agenda items for parking gates and spaces for the Detention Center costing over $82,000 - the agenda does not say whether the funds were already specifically budgeted for those purposes, or are NEW requests. In this economy, no NEW surprise spending should be taking place. In the School District meetings, when Larry Metz was on the Board, he threw back NEW spending items, asking why it was not in the earlier annual budget they approved. He said if they didn't plan for it then, there was no excuse for coming in during the year and asking for NEW, unbudgeted funds. I believe EVERY agenda item regarding spending approvals should specify in the agenda whether the funds were in the annual, approved budget, or they are a new spending request.
Follow Up: This item was actually tabled for future discussion. However, later in a budget presentation by County Manager David Heath, he did say that one of the "challenges" in keeping spending down was for the Commissioners to NOT propose new spending that is not budgeted. We will continue to raise this issue.
5. Tab 11 is a CONSENT agenda item (meaning it will NOT be discussed in the meeting) to approve a new Firefighters Union agreement. I continue to assert that all employee wage, benefit and union agreements need to be discussed in the open forum. However, the attachments explain "Economic items - There was no change to wages, incentive pay or uniform allowances. " Generally, unlike the School unions, the firefighters have been pragmatic in this economy, so I don't have a complaint about the agreement, just the lack of public hearings.
Follow Up: This was not discussed by the Board.
6. Tab 23 indicates MORE discussions on the Long & Scott Farms Airport - when will it end - only attorneys benefit from this process.
Follow up: The discussion resulted in postponing some decisions until a new committee meets to discuss airport issues. The big issue is that if the airport is expanded, the Federal FAA could define a large area around the airport where birds are reduced, which is counter the environmentalist efforts to develop the north end of Lake Apopka as a birding area. Watch the video if you want better details.
7. Sand skinks, Agenda 21 & Gun Control Position Papers: Under "IX. Reports - Tab 27", the County Manager will discuss "approval of additional legislative issues regarding Sand Skinks (i.e. endangered species land use restrictions), Agenda 21 and Firearms". Yes, the Board and staff are learning about Agenda 21 and will probably discuss the effects of proposed FL legislation to ROLL back local and State government Agenda 21 program related issues. (See tinyurl.com/HaltAgenda21 for background). This should be interesting to property rights followers.
Follow Up: Three position documents were approved by the Board to present to the Florida legislators on issues. One was a request they form a committee to study the negative effects of Agenda 21 on Counties (i.e. environmental and land use issues), which is a good first step. The Board will also schedule a workshop in January to discuss harmfull effects of Agenda 21 sustainable development restrictions in the County Comp Plan and other regulations.
Additionally, Fox Orlando TV interviewed Board Chair Leslie Campione about the firearms issue HERE about guns being fired and bullets landing in other people's yards. (What is funny is her husband has a firing range in his back yard.) You can use the agenda web-link at the top of this page and find the specific recommendations.
If you go to the agenda tracking document, you can scroll to position 2:02:40 of the agenda video and see this 10 minute discussion. Also notice on the agenda video that Sean Parks is defensive about Agenda 21. A friend noted that Sean was one of the committee members and authors of the current County Comprehensive Land Use plan that includes many Agenda 21 restrictions.
The Board decided to have a workshop on Agenda 21 in January. No date set yet.
8. Section X is a "General Budget Overview/Review" (2:17:33 on video)- previous ones were led by the prior County Manager, and now the new County Manager, David Heath will be batter up - let's see if he tries what they did last year, which is to recommend raising property taxes, which did not happen. However, I agree the County Departments have taken large budget hits, so other SUBSIDY programs need to be cut like LakeExpress, etc. If they reduced excessive Comp Plan land use restrictions, fewer staff hours and attorney hours would be needed to approve land uses, thus saving funds. Program budgeting with specific, measurable metrics are needed. The budgets should be reviewed based upon programs and those with vague or weak metrics should be dropped. I am NOT certain the time for this - is it after the Reports in the morning, or before the 1:30 pm Sheriff Budget workshop.
News Report: The Orlando Sentinel article on the meeting mostly focused on the budget and Sheriff's budget and it is HERE.
Follow up: HERE is the attached Powerpoint used by County Manager David Heath for his budget overview for the 2013-2014 budget. Download 2012-12-04 BCC staff Budget Presentation
Follow Up: County Manager David Heath and Budget Director Steve Koontz went over next year's "challenges" in keeping the budget solvent, and you can get details from the video. More budget hearings are scheduled this month, but if they are like the Sheriff's, they will just be puff presentations about why budgets should not be cut.
9. SHERIFF's Budget Hearing at 1:30pm (2:55:00 on video - lasts 1 hour): Finally, to repeat, the FIRST EVER public hearing on the Sheriff's budget will be held in a 1:30 pm workshop - you have to read clear to the END of the agenda to find it listed. He has never had a performance audit, and his budgets are hard to get, so let's see if the newly re-elected Sheriff Borders starts to take on budget pain like other departments, or will he fight the Board? At the very least, he should catch up with other Department spending reductions over the last five years and reduce his ACTUAL spending by 10% AND have a ground up performance audit conducted by the new Internal Audit Director in the Court Clerk's office to examine efficiency, effectiveness and economy of operations.
Follow UP: Orlando Channel 9, WFTV's Berndt Petersen, interviewed ME (Vance Jochim) about the Sheriff's budget issue, and HERE you can see his video report. He did that BEFORE the presentation, so I didn't know yet how detailed the presentation would be - so see my comments below.
Follow Up: As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, this presentation is in the video (scroll to 2:55:00 to see it) and was very disappointing because they avoided most discussion of budget sections, details, etc. Three of the Board members spent time telling the Sheriff how great he was (Cadwell, Parks & Conner) so I don't expect them to demand much detail or aggresive cuts from his department, even though he has about 50% of the total County budget. This means other County Departments will take the cuts, or taxes will be raised for year 2013-2014 (no decisions until mid-2013).
HERE is the attachment of the Sheriff's PowerPoint presentation - apparently they don't know how to provide color pdf versions of the the PowerPoint, so all I have so far is this black and white scanned version from them (which, but the way, was NOT posted on the Board agenda before or after the meeting). This is in TWO parts: Download Sheriff Budget PPT 1 Download Sheriff Budget PPT 2
Here is the Daily Commercial article on the budget meeting.
Here is the Orlando Sentinel article on the budget issues.
See you at the meeting.
Vance Jochim
Later this week: Look for our VIDEO review of that new County Agenda Management Software System. BUT, the one benefit is after the meeting, you can go back to the online budget and view the video of each specific agenda discussion. I encourage you to do so.
Follow up: One promised feature of the NEW software was to allow links directly to video of agenda item discussions, rather than one large file you had to scroll through. However, this week's agenda video was once again a single giant file 4 hours long, so not even the one major benefit wasn't implemented (it was working in prior weeks).
Background: The County has switched to a convoluted new software to "manage" agendas so I suggest you download the "Packet" which contains all attachments, then view and print the first eight pages which is the Agenda. To find attachments to Agenda items, you have to scroll down the entire document to find the agenda topic, then click on the website links to get attachments, if provided. We will be publishing a VIDEO review and guide of this software because it is so confusing to people, and the staff did NOT provide any tutorial or explanation how the new software works, why Agendas contain the old tab numbers, but the master document does not, why the left side section index contains NO section numbers, why the agenda lists the 1:30pm Sheriff budget hearing, but the master document does NOT, etc.
You read our article and decide what the Board should do, then write or call them and let them know.
Forward this to any friend who lives in Lake County, FL, or likes politics or government spending issues, AND they are concerned about improving local government operations, reducing taxes and improving accountability, transparency and oversight.
Vance Jochim - Tavares, FL
This is news from the FiscalRangers.com blog about Lake County, Florida local government issues, including Lake County Government, the Lake County School District, the North Lake County Hospital District and other local issues. It is written by Vance Jochim, and has been published since 2006.
