Fiscal Rangers

Wunderbar - the new Lake County, FL Court Clerk, Gary Cooney, has Appointed a new, QUALIFIED, Inspector General

Wunderbar - the newly elected Lake County, FL Court Clerk, Gary Cooney, has Appointed a new, QUALIFIED, Inspector General, Terri Freeman. Read more →

Project Veritas uncovers a Deep State Federal Auditor working on anti-Capitalist campaigns at work - Call your Congressman

Project Veritas uncovered on video a FEDERAL GAO staffer and card-carrying member of the Democrat Socialists of America (DSA) admitting he works to destroy capitalism using work time. As a retired internal audit manager this makes me really angry so I submitted this video link and other information to Trey Gowdy's US House Oversight & Reform Committee and asked for a public investigation. Read more →

Florida Division may have cooked work statistics to get better performance rankings

The Inspector General for the Florida Dept. of Business & Professional Regulation (DBPR) reported an audit of a department for cooking the books and submitting multiple work tickets for single work projects to inflate work statistics. The whisteblower also said inflating the numbers would increase rates paid by insured parties. We include the report excerpt and comment on the report and issue. Read more →

Palm Beach County Audit Discloses Favoritism & Cronyism in Selecting Contractors

Tavares, FL April 17, 2015 This is older news, but a relevant example of local government cronyism, bribery, and waste in Palm Beach County, FL Source: Orlando Sentinel: "Lunches, golf outings and vacations involving a Palm Beach County official and government contractors created a potential perception of favoritism in awarding $9 million in publicly funded work, according to the county's inspector general. The inquiry raised questions about Deputy County Engineer Tanya McConnell's role in directing county contracts to three firms represented by people she described as "friends." While Inspector General John Carey found that no laws were broken, he did call for changes to the county's contracting process. He also forwarded the case to the county's Ethics Commission for further review, which rules on potential violations of the county's ethics code." READ more HERE. The above article provides an example of how a strong County Director can bluff staff into giving business to favored vendors who are "friends". It is amazing she was that stupid when the County hired an Independent Inspector General several years ago due to political corruption. Link to Palm Beach Inspector General's website - which has link to the above mentioned 4/16/2015 "Engineering Department" audit. Vance... Read more →

Lake County School Board and Superintendent Restrict District Audit Director from Auditing Certain Functions

Today the Daily Commercial published a front page article about recent actions by the Lake County School Board to restrict the ability of the District Internal Audit Director from reviewing "teaching and learning" processes. We comment on why that is a bad idea. Never forget that government is a monopoly, so extra oversight and transparency is needed to ensure operations are efficient, effective and economical. One way to do that is have an independent internal audit function with full and unfettered access to all employees, vendors, and records. Read more →

Florida Gets a D- and is ranked 30th in National State Integrity Investigation Report

Florida ranked a D- in a new, national study comparing all states in 13 "integrity" or accountability categories. A well known national watchdog, Center for Public Integrity ( http://www.publicintegrity.org/ ), published their annual "State Integrity Investigation" report comparing how each state ranks in 13 categories related to transparency, oversight and accountability. A partner, www.GlobalIntegrity.org was also involved in the report development. Florida, like MOST states, ranked near the bottom with a D- and only three states had higher C or B rankings. Based on points, Florida "achieved" a 61, and was 30th out of all 50 states (or 57 states if you are Obama). Read more →

City of Opa-locka, FL suffers from Corruption Scandal, fails to pay phone & other bills

Tavares, FL Nov. 5, 2015 A corruption scandal in the city of Opa-locka, FL has caused the city to run out of cash and they aren't paying their bills. "The city even stopped paying life insurance premiums for its workers. You know it's bad when their phone service is shut off for not paying the bills. I will write more later, but here is an initial story on it: Miami Herald On brink of financial collapse, Opa-locka seeks state help For Opa-locka government leaders, the signs of financial distress came abruptly last month: The phone service to City Hall was shut off. Then came the complaints: The city owed thousands in rent payments for police satellite offices and $100,000 to a contractor who walked off the job while restoring the historic City Hall. The city even stopped paying life insurance premiums for its workers. Just two weeks after a corruption scandal embroiled Opa-locka's leaders, the city is faced with another grim development: Opa-locka is edging toward financial collapse. http://www.miamiherald.com/…/miami-gar…/article43040772.html vj Read more →

Lake County, FL Inspector General Bob Melton speaks at North Lake County Tea Party

July 24, 2015 Tavares, FL The Inspector General for Lake County, FL, Bob Melton, was the featured speaker at a meeting of the North Lake Tea Party on July 14, 2015. He works for the Lake County Court Clerk, and can do performance audits of the Lake County Government, but not the Constitutional Officers unless they request an audit. They have never done so. But this talk focuses on his department abilities, and provides insights into the function of Guardianships and what he has seen when working at other Counties. Here is a link to the video of his 45 minute talk: https://youtu.be/jzrh2R8zw14 Here is his Powerpoint shown in his video: Download Role of the IG in Government Guardianships FINAL Here is the Inspector General's webpage on the Lake County Court Clerk website, including many performance audits of Lake County Government functions. Opinion In my view as an experienced Internal Audit Manager, Melton's group issues some very good audit reports on inefficiencies and needed performance improvements in County Departments. He just needs authority to initiate similar performance audits of all the Constitutional Officers and other local agencies like Cities or the North Lake Hospital District or the Lake County Water... Read more →

James Krakowski reports on Jul. 20 Lake County School Board meeting results

Tavares, FL July 23, 2015 www.FiscalRangers.com by Vance Jochim Updated August 19, 2015 to reflect additional facts James Krakowsi and I were at the recent July 20th Lake County School Board afternoon "Special Meeting" (like a workshop) and he did such a good job describing what happened that I am including it here. James is a leader in the South Lake 912 Project group that meets in Clermont. Their website is at http://www.southlake912project.com/ . Most of the reports are routine, but I spent time and added comments below on the PD360 program which is a classic case of government mis-management and waste. But the Dept of Evaluations & Accountability staff did a great job of exposing it after Board member Marc Dodd asked for a review of it. (Update: I was told that Supt. Moxley requested the review before Dodd asked questions, but in my opinion if he didn't ask questions and maintain visibility it might still be sitting in a drawer.) You can see the video of the entire 3+ hour meeting HERE on the Lake County Schools YouTube channel. You can read or download the full agenda of the meeting HERE on BoardDocs on the School District website.... Read more →

Daily Commercial Discloses Capabilities of County Inspector General Bob Melton

Tavares, FL Lake County, FL Dec. 7, 2014 For eight years I have attended Lake County School Board meetings, and attended County Board meetings for 6 years. As a former Certified Internal Auditor I have preached the need to have competent Internal Auditors in both County Government and for the Lake County School District. During that time, each agency went through three auditors and now both have very competent Certified Internal Auditors (CIA) who focus on efficiency, effectivenes and economical operations reviews. I also was a CIA for 20 years. Today the Daily Commercial published a front page story by Livi Stanford on the County's Inspector General, Bob Melton. Livi is the reporter covering both the Lake County Board and the Lake County School District, and has recently been writing articles on the detailed audit reports from each agency's audit departments. Hooray. Now they need to do a story on School District Internal Audit Director Tom Mock, another Certified Internal Auditor. Read the Daily Commercial story HERE. You can find internal audit reports from Melton's website as well as the Lake County internal audits of Tom Mock at these two links: http://www.lakecountyclerk.org/internal_audit/default.aspx and http://www.lake.k12.fl.us/site/Default.aspx?PageID=114 And for more background on why... Read more →