Tavares, FL – Jan. 7, 2013
Tomorrow, Tuesday Jan 8th, the Lake County Board will have a TWO part meeting.
The first session is the normal 9am Jan. 8th Board meeting, with the agenda here. You should look at just the agenda which contains links to any attachments (not all agenda items have attachments), or download the full packet which contains all the attachments in one huge non-indexed pdf file. If you open these links during the actual meeting times, you can see a streaming video of the meeting in a box in the upper left:
http://lakecountyfl.suiteonemedia.com/web/home.aspx
The SECOND Meeting session is 1:30 pm in the same County Round building in Tavares on Main St. and is a Budget Workshop for the “Public Resources Dept”, and is described on
- Parks & Stormwater MSTU
- Library Services, and
- Agricultural Services
- SEE the below attachment which is the budget section for Public Resources from the 2013 Budget. Another FiscalRangers.com service!!
Download 2013 Pub Services Dept Budget Info 14pgs
- There are no attachments for the budget discussion. The public will most likely be allowed to give public input. (More Below) After the meeting, you can request copies of the Powerpoint and other documents from the Commissioner’s office staff because they do NOT attach them to the online agenda after meetings. (Unlike the School District Board, which does do that).
Comments about the 9am Meeting:
- The first item after Agenda Updates (adding or revising the agenda) is Employee Awards, which take about 15 minutes.
- Section III is “Citizen Question & Answer Period”: Known as public input, you can spend 3 minutes telling the Commissioners your comments on “Consent Agenda” items or those not open to discussion. (Hold your Budget comments to the 1:30 pm meeting session)
- The “Consent Agenda” items are tab items 2-18. Unless the Board “pulls them for discussion”, they will be approved without public discussion. They include some interesting items that will NOT be discussed:
- Tab 5: The Board will approve an $83,000 contract with a contractor to rehab a fire station, but the contractor is NOT in Lake County.
- Tab 7: The Lake County Superintendent of Elections will get a GRANT of $50,944 from the Federal “Help America Vote Act (HAVA)” which is described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help_America_Vote_Act . I didn’t look at the supporting documents, but the link’s article is interesting.
- Tab 8: Asks BCC to approve getting sponsorships for the 2nd Annual Landscaping & Garden Fair to be held at the Lake County Agriculture Center. This is ironic, because we heard that at the 1:30 pm budget hearing, on recommended cut might be Discovery Gardens.
- Tab 9: Authorizes the staff to start the RFP process to select a consultant (budget is $150,000) for Commissioner Sean Parks “South Lake Sector Plan”, which is a development of 16,000 acres (I think) also known as Wellness Way.
- Tab 18: The Board recently approved creation of a CRA (Community Redevelopment Agency) for Mt. Plymouth-Sorrento. Now they want to AMEND the CRA Ordinance to allow a non-resident to be on the Advisory Committee (but who may have business interests in the CRA area).
- Presentations – Tabs 20-22
- Tab 20: A BB&T Bank rep will give a presentation on the economy and trends, which should be interesting.
- Tab 21: The Mayors of Eustis, Mt. Dora & Tavares will give a presentation on a proposed Golden Triangle Fire District, which would be a consolidation of fire fighting resources. For the taxpayer, this might be a good thing to reduce costs.
- Tab 22: The CFAC (Capital Facilities Advisory Committee) will discuss alternative for SCHOOL District Impact fees and funding. They already gave this at the School District Board meeting after numerous meetings. There were no surprises. There are only a few options to raise funds to cover reduced property tax and waived impact fees, and no one is happy. The issue is the School Board won’t make any decisions, especially on a proposed changed to an expiring sales tax, and the County Board doesn’t want to be left making the final decision because the School Board would not make a decision. This could be where the County Board extends the waived School impact fees, or doesn’t.
- Tab 23 – Presentation on Amendments to the County Comp Plan. Since the agenda is VAGUE and it is so hard to find stuff in the Agenda packet, we will have to watch the presentation to see if they are adding more Agenda 21 types of land use restrictions (which fail to uphold property rights). Or maybe they will reduce restrictions, or maybe it is about the South Sector plan and related modifications. Too bad property owners have no easy way to know before the meeting.
- Board “Reports” sometimes contain new issues not listed in the agenda, so I always watch them. That should be the end of the morning meeting.
1:30 PM Budget Workshop – Lake County Public Resources Dept.
- SEE the attachment above which is the budget section for Public Resources from the 2013 Budget. Another FiscalRangers.com service!!
- Parks & Stormwater MSTU
- Library Services, and
- Agricultural Services
The Board is having early budget workshops on different departments to do early planning, and to get proposed alternatives on how each department will cut their next fiscal year budget by 5% to 10%. I don’t expect decisions to be made, but initial impressions could result in later decisions. The interesting aspect is that there was a recent audit that found that the County Animal Services Dept. had failed to invoice pet owners for an average $500,000 in potential revenues per year AND also if the fees were raised to levels like surrounding counties. They also failed to issue citations for missing pet licenses which could have raised another $500,000 or so. So, how would you like to be one of the areas to be cut in these budget workshops while Animal Services (And their managers) failed to collect about $1-million in revenue per year. (HERE is that audit report, which was covered by the Daily Commercial last Friday)
This is an early planning meeting, but staff will give a presentation on the “Public Resources” Department programs and budgets, then recommendations for alternative cuts to meet planning goals of reducing each department by at least 5% for next 2013-2014 Budget Year which starts Oct. 1, 2013. However, the weakness in this process is that Board only sees what the staff wants them to see, with 2-3 alternative areas to cut. The Board doesn’t usually go through budget line items to understand if the other 90% of the programs really do have higher priority. As a consequence, people in the proposed cut areas only had 2-3 days notice to get supporters to the meeting to give public input.
Expect to see wild eyed people supporting libraries, parks and the Agricultural Education Services (Master Gardeners and Discovery Gardens) all pleading not to be cut. Stormwater budgets are also up for discussion, but I don’t know if they have a constituent group. (J) This is when you watch the Board to see if a consensus evolves over proposed budget cut targets. And, you have to wonder why they would do so when Animal Services never collected an estimated $1-million a year to offset some of their expenses (which are higher than $1-million).
And if you are in a Public Resources Dept. NOT on the proposed cut list, don’t get complacent. Supporters of programs to be cut may make such a fuss, others could be added to the list instead, any time until final budget decisions are made in June/July or August. OR, the economy could turn around and cuts won’t be needed.
Isn’t government fun??? See you at the meetings, or watch the video during or after the meeting (posted about a day later).
Vance Jochim
Lake County Fiscal Rangers
Chief Fiscal Watchdog
Volunteers Searching for Ways to Improve Local Government Fiscal Management, Efficiency & Effectiveness
PO Box 1042
Tavares, FL 32778
Mobile: 352-638-3578
TWITTER: @FiscalRangers
"FiscalRangers" page on Facebook
YouTube: NEW 6/2012 - Videos of local political candidate forums and other meetings, like North Lake County Hospital District & Lake County Legislators' Delegation annual forums - visit the youtube channel "FiscalRangersFlorida"
CLICK HERE to see recommended internet links related to Local Lake County government fiscal issues.
