Tavares, FL Monday, June 23, 2014
Tomorrow, Tuesday, the Lake County (FL) County Board will have a budget workshop in their Board Chamber room at 1pm.
There is NO detailed budget proposal, Powerpoint or any hint what might be discussed at the 1pm workshop.
They will most likely be discussing not only the upcoming budget and updates, but how to fund projected shortages AND how to fund a $3-million budget hike request from the County Sheriff, Gary Borders. The Sheriff and Board (especially Jimmy Connors) have conducted a publicity campaign on the Sheriff needing to increase taxes to pay for increased wages.
There have been articles placed with friendly writers in the local press, including both the Daily Commercial and the Lake Sentinel's Lauren Ritchie.
There may be a good case for salary increases, but NOT using tax increases when no one knows if internal departments are efficient or other programs can be cut to fund wage increases (like every other local government agency has done. Thus tax hikes for the Sheriff budget should NOT be approved since:
- The Sheriff has never had public, detailed hearings on his budgets. For some magical reason, Florida does not require them of Constitutional officers. In comparison, the County Board, the County School District Board, the Lake County Water Authority and even NOW the formerly secretive North Lake County Hospital District have public hearings on proposed and final budgets and allow public input. Again, the Sheriff's budget is about the same as the Lake County Board's budget ($50-60-million), but there is no transparency.
- The Sheriff does NOT post detailed budget proposals or final versions on his website or print them. His own website just gives you the page number in the COUNTY budget where they have only TWO pages to describe his total budget. The other 400+ pages focus on the County budget.
- The Sheriff has never requested or had a performance audit, which is common for both the County operations and for the Lake County School District. Such audits are designed to review departments for efficiency, effectiveness and economy, but the Sheriff has never done so.
Our Recommendation:
The Lake County Board should not raise taxes or give budget increases of any type to the Sheriff until he:
- Posts detailed proposed and final budgets on his website for the last five years so details and trends over time can be examined.
- Holds at least two public hearings with staff presentations on budget details and allowing public input.
- Requests a schedule of operational audits with at least one departmental performance audit per quarter, from the Court Clerk's Inspector General Department (which also audits the County operations). As part of the request, the Inspector General should be requested to develop a "risk analysis" database of all areas subject to performance audits and prioritize them over a three year cycle.
If the Lake County Board does not require the above conditions for approving any budget increases for the Sheriff, then I consider them to be mis-managing taxpayer funds since they are not requiring budget and operational efficiency transparency expected of most other government agencies. This is especially important when the Sheriff budget may exceed $50-million and the public has no idea what operations are inefficient and could be streamlined to pay for wage increases.
Concerned taxpayers should inform their Board members to implement the above conditions.
Vance Jochim
FiscalRangers.com
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NEWS Flash Bonus: The Lake County SCHOOL District Board today voted to 1) work with the County Board to renew an existing "penny sales tax" as is, with the County, Schools & Cities each getting a third share. 2) The School Board voted to request that the Lake County BOARD re-instate School impact fees to be "fully funded" at 100% of rates defined in a consulting report. This means the current South County rate of 25% of the fees (about $2500 per new home) would be increased to over $10,000 per new home. Other rates are defined for larger homes and other types of buildings. The alternative is for the County Board to provide an alternate funding source (which could be higher property taxes?) to provide the same revenue streams for capital spending (new schools, etc). Expect that to come up at the June 24th budget workshop held by the County Board.
