Fiscal Rangers

For Profit Colleges Under Investigation by Congress, and this one shouldn't receive funds

Tavares, FL Nov. 3, 2015 Billions of US taxpayer funds flow to private, for profit colleges, and many overcharge, lie to students and the students run up school debt from Federal loans and don't pay it back. How do these colleges qualify to get the Federal student loans? They are approved by private accreditation firms, and if they don't implement tight standards, the colleges get away with fraud and students, not the colleges, are on the hook for debt for poor education. Read this story and watch the video of Senator Warren grilling the head of one of the accreditors and you will get mad at the Federal government for allowing some of these accreditors and colleges to get ANY Federal tax dollars. VJ Read more →

Small Town California Newspaper gets Pulitzer for Investigation Series on Local School District Corruption

A California school district with only four schools and 6600 students suffered huge fiscal losses due to cronyism and corruption and overpayment of salaries. The local paper published a 10-part investigative series and won a Pulitzer. One of the lessons is the corruption that can occur when contracting firms support elected school board members to get huge school bond issues totaling $200-million and related projects approved. Additionally, the District Superindant was paid $663,000 in salaries, benefits and perks, which was much higher than the Superintendant of the much larger Los Angeles School District. Read more →

FiscalFiasco: Michigan wastes $12-million on commuter railcar leases and doesn't use them

Feb. 3, 2015 Tavares, FL Another fine government fiscal fiasco in Michigan wasting over $12-million in taxpayer funds. It seems that the State of Michigan leased a bunch of OLD railcars for a local commuter rail project, but it isn't ready, so the cars sit idle while piling up over $1-million per year in lease payments. Only government (in Michigan) could be that stupid and wasteful of taxpayer funds. It seems that Michigan requires 10% of a Transportation fund be spent on commuter rail, so they blew it on the commuter railcar leases when the railroad line was not usable. "The Michigan Department of Transportation started leasing the cars in 2010 for two commuter rail passenger services proposed between Detroit and Ann Arbor, and Howell and Ann Arbor. But nearly five years later, none of the cars has logged a single commuter passenger mile. There still is no funding and no operator for either proposed commuter service, required environmental studies are not complete, and in the case of the Detroit-Ann Arbor service, even the tracks won't be ready for another two years." "The roughly $11.4 million spent as of Dec. 31 was mostly paid from Michigan's $300-million Comprehensive Transportation Fund,... Read more →

Attend Today's Tavares July 4th Parade AND be sure see Dinesh D'Souzas Patriotic Movie "America" this weekend

Tavares, FL July 4th, 2014 Be sure to attend the July 4th Parade in downtown Tavares. Be there before 4:30. Parade starts at 5pm Today is the great patriotic holiday, July 4th. “America” is a patriotic movie now in theaters, including the AMC theaters in Leesburg, where the producer, Dinesh D’Souza, describes all the complaints about America by liberals, then takes them apart one by one. You walk out of the theater being proud of America, not hostile towards America like Obama and the liberals. I saw the movie yesterday, and it was great. It helps understand the clear difference between American hating liberals and American loving patriots and conservatives. One big learning point for me is that the way that people increase wealth in most other countries is through CONQUEST, using force to TAKE property or countries. In the US, we have Constitutional freedoms and property rights they don’t have, and thus INDIVIDUAL Americans ALL have the opportunity to build wealth through entrepreneurship and improving property values. Dinesh provides examples. It is a big difference, and “professional” media reporters need to educate themselves on these issues if they really want to be a “balanced” reporter and also provide visibility... Read more →

Lake County Historical Society Erupts in Spat and Accusations

Tavares, FL - Saturday, Feb. 22, 2013 (After publishing this, we received some comments from Jimmy Conner which were added at the end of this article - vj). Today’s Daily Commercial broke a story about a bubbling spat between Board members of the Lake County Historical Society, but had only part of the story. I have been informed of this story since last weekend, but was waiting for some resolution since not all facts could be confirmed. Read their story first. http://www.dailycommercial.com/News/LakeCounty/23Feb2013society There are two opposing groups on the 18 (?) member Board. One supports the Office Manager and may have launched the accusations against the President and Vice President to offset the planned investigation by the other group wanting a review of the Office Manager spending and timekeeping practices. Thursday, key members of the Board met with Court Clerk Neil Kelly because the Society is funded by County funds (about $20,000 (?)) and Kelly acts as Treasurer. The Society is funded with County funds, thus indicating a need for officials to get involved. However I called County Board member Jimmy Conner who is the County Board liaison to the Society, and he said this is an “internal dispute” and... Read more →

List of Lake County Officials Delinquent in Filing Ethics Disclosure Forms

Tavares, FL - Lake County, FL - Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2012 UPDATED to today, Sept. 4th -see UPDATE section at the bottom of this document from Integrity Florida regarding Lake's late filers. This information was sent out by email yesterday to some local officials: Below is a link to a list of numerous Lake County officials who will soon face fines for not submitting required financial statements. Lake County I received this notice below from a local officer of the North Lake Tea Party. He received it from IntegrityFlorida, which apparently tracked people in public positions who have not filed required annual Financial Disclosure statements that were due July 1, 2012. I have not verified the accuracy of this list or how CURRENT it is (the memo below says as of August 29), and most of the names are city officials or in other smaller districts or agencies. I did not see any major elected officials from the County or School District on the list. Since today (Sept. 3) is a holiday, I can’t contact the Elections Superintendent to determine if her office is even involved in ensuring compliance, since the reports are due tomorrow. I know, that as a... Read more →

SOME of Palm Beach County Cities (but not all) Sue to NOT fund County Inspector General

When you see a headline like this, you assume the Inspector General Office in Palm Beach County, FL is screwing up, but not in this case. The IG was created about 3 years ago by a Palm Beach County citizen referendum vote, with authority over Palm Beach County (also previously known as Corruption County), School District and all the cities. But a number of the larger cities sued a few months ago to NOT be invoiced for their share of the IG costs. No other reason seems to exist other than not wanting to pay for it, or they don't want some of their actions to be subject to review by an independent IG. But, there are quite a few cities that did NOT sue to stop funding, so maybe this issue will die as the cities suing not to be subjected to audit find out the public might not be happy with that approach. That was the point of the editorial below. http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/opinion/let-good-cities-do-the-right-thing/nPN7C/ vj Read more →

FiscalRangers Call to Action: STOP Gov. Scott from Applying for SNEAKY, Liberal Federal Grant

Update 1pm Wed - added more details from Kathryn Sutherlin about the high amount used for administrative expenses and lying about budget numbers. Also, the email for Gov Scott doesn't work, and you have to wait a long time for Scott's office to answer the phone. Update 4pm: We added the official press release from the California Office of Early Learning which says it was SIGNED yesterday, but another source says it might not be a done deal. Keep tuned. Tavares, FL - Oct. 19, 2011 - Today, Wednesday, is the SURPRISE Deadline for Florida State government to apply for A STEALTH, SNEAKY Federal Grant that will over regulate one Florida industry, Child Care. I am asking you, based upon the request of a credible Lake County volunteer and the inforamtion below, to CALL Florida Governor Rick Scott TODAY to HALT any action for Florida to APPLY for the grant. Phone call and email details are below. The $100-million grant proposal ( Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge ) from a Florida State agency, the Florida Office of Early Learning, is an application for a STEALTH grant using Nancy Pelosi type hidden agendas and lack of details to... Read more →

Are Ethics of Elected Officials and Government Improving in Lake County?

Tavares, FL - July 7, 2011 - Ethics may slowly be improving in Lake County... So there was this high level official in the State of New York who forced internal staff to issue a $100,000 grant to a firm that had hired his wife as a consultant. But, he got caught, and was fired after the IG started their investigation. And, we have read about Orlando officials on a Board steering large service contracts to their own firms. Gee, it reminds me of a local Lake County official who I was told funneled campaign funds to a firm that employed his wife. But, knowing Florida, maybe it is legal here? Or, the rumors I hear about another elected official who got a house or land for much less than the owner paid for it? Perhaps for ruling on important issues? Of course, that could only be a rumor from political opponents... Or, the elected official who works full time for another government agency, but still takes time off for election campaigning and elected duties. Taking time off from your own business is one thing, but doing it while an apparent full time government employee is another thing. We don't... Read more →

We Launch Campaign to Get Serono Labs officers Prosecuted

We normally focus on Lake County or related local government issues. This issue doesn't really affect most regular Lake County Fiscal Rangers readers, but if you want to see details of what can be done with social media to get government to actually prosecute wrongdoers, instead of just paying a fine, read on. I am separately involved in research related to a new "CCSVI" treatment for multiple sclerosis - MS (I don't have it). This week, the US Dept. of Justice (DOJ) posted a press release about a drug company Serono Labs, that had paid unreported bribes and other expenses for many doctors to market an MS drug called Rebif. The press release said bribery, money laundering and kickbacks were involved to get doctors to push Rebif to MS patients. Most MS drugs are REALLY expensive and many prescriptions are paid by Medicare or Medicaid, thus the Federal involvement. DOJ issued a press release that they had settled with Serano paying a fine of $40-million, but NO officers were prosecuted. This has upset the MS "community" evidenced by many postings on MS related Facebook pages around the world, especially since Serono was the subject of an earlier prosecution that resulted... Read more →

Dick Morris: Inflation is Coming, and I Agree Obama & Democrats Should be Blamed

The Federal government now borrows $40-BILLION per week to pay interest on all the debt they have approved. When someone says there is a $13-TRILLION or so deficit, that means the Feds have sold debt and agreed to pay interest to GET all that money. OR, they PRINTED new money which increases the money supply, which causes inflation. Obama and the Democrats have done both. And, as interest goes up, I am betting much of the debt has cost of living escalators, so interest due to China and other buyers of US bonds and debt instruments will rise as interest rates rise. I lived through the last great inflation bubble when President Jimmy Carter ran up costs and implemented all those liberal programs that run up inflation. That was when I thought I had a GOOD DEAL buying a house at 9.5% interest rates, and then the rates went up to almost 20% due to inflation. Recently, I have watched Obama implementing many inflation causing practices, including "printing money", and excessive borrowing money to fund all his social programs. Now, inflation is starting to hit us, not only due to unrest in oil producing countries, but subsidizing food crops like... Read more →

Ohio Schools Business Manager to be Sentenced for Bribery, Embezzlement & Theft

I add this article as a case study of one type of corruption possible in local government or School Districts. In this case, a School District Business Manager apparently was able to embezzle funds from the sale of school owned construction equipment. vj AKRON -- Former Maple Heights schools official Steve Canepa, who most recently worked for the West Geauga schools, will be sentenced Monday in federal court on Cuyahoga County corruption-related counts tied to his former Maple Heights job. Canepa, 43, of Mantua, was charged with three counts related to bribery, and one each for theft and mail fraud. He is admitting the theft charge but pleaded not guilty when he was first charged with all five counts. He will appear Monday before U.S. District Judge John Adams. His attorney, Mark Marein, said Canepa only committed one of the five crimes he is accused of. Prosecutors claim Canepa embezzled proceeds from the 2008 sale of a boom lift used for construction and owned by the Maple Heights school system. Canepa resigned from West Geauga on Aug. 23 but had been on medical leave since May. Canepa cited personal matters for his departure and thanked the school board and others... Read more →

Updated: City of Tavares to Fire Three Employees for Hacking Emails of top staff

UPDATED 5PM: I added a couple of war stories about a similar experience I saw while in Baghdad, Iraq. Is this too good, or what. It seems the IT Director and the network administrator at the City of Tavares hacked into management's emails and read them. Then, the department assistant used the information to send out anonymous emails slamming the city. Recently, there were articles in the press about the Tavares, City Manager, John Drury, requesting a salary increase, and apparently the articles were based on the anonymous emails sent out. Somewhere, someone got suspicious and the Administration hired a consultant to track down who was using the inside info, and they... got em in a 41 page report. Government workers need to watch out for, and RESPECT email privacy rights, and kudos to City Administrator John Drury for tracking down the culprits. However, keep in mind that in Florida, emails are subject to sunshine open records laws, and anyone could have filed an open records request to get all emails from specific people, and would have gotten them. However, there are rules to redact or edit out certain subjects, and salary discussions could have been one of them. Thus,... Read more →

A FiscalRangers.com Perspective on the BP Oil Spill

Point 1: Never forget all oil drilling is to meet the oil demands of US and other country consumers and our demand pushes them to take risks to fill our demand for oil. Point 2: Never forget that "BP" is a BRITISH firm, not American, and they have a terrible drilling safety record, compared to other oil firms. I will discuss that later. Point 3: Never forget that BP and other firms were drilling in risky, high depth locations because US Democrats, liberals and environmentalists refused to let them drill in safer, lower depth locations near shorelines like is done near Santa Barbara & Long Beach, California, and they have also reduced oil firm ability to drill onshore, which is even safer. There have been hardly any ONSHORE drilling catastrophes, so it is much safer. Background: In the 1980's, I lived in Southern California and worked as one of 10 Internal Audit group Directors at ARCO (Atlantic Richfield), a very well managed oil company with a headquarters in Los Angeles, plus operations near New Orleans and the Alaskan Pipeline. I traveled to an offshore oil rig near New Orleans, Coal operations in Denver, the Alaska pipeline in Alaska ( including... Read more →

Are You Angry at the Florida Sunrail Boondoggle - then read this

Florida isn't the only State with railroad boondoggles. I lived in Southern California where they spent billions on commuter trains that are extremely costly. It would have been cheaper to give each rider a new car. And Florida taxpayers are mad at legislators for passing the $600-million plus railroad boondoggle called SunRail, although there are even more rail projects around the state to reward the firms who paid lobbyists to bribe legislators to get approvals. So, here is a link to a story about a similar railroad boondoggle in Fairfax County, Virginia that is further along. This is a website to fight the rail plan, and the link is to an article analyzing all the hidden and unknown costs. When will we elect politicians who do not accept campaign bribes to pass such projects? vj Read more →

Clout of Tea Party grows vs Republicans or Dems, According to Rasmussen Poll

A major political polling firm, Rasmussen, has published a study that indicates the Tea Party groups have much more clout in the minds of voters than you might think. Here is what they said: Survey of 1,000 Likely Voters December 4-5, 2009 Suppose the Tea Party organized itself as a political party. When thinking about the next election for Congress, would you vote for the Republican candidate from your district, the Democratic candidate from your district or the Tea Party candidate from your district? Democratic 36% Tea Party 23% Republican 18% Not sure 22 However, the study above is misleading, because the REAL Tea Party folks do NOT intend to be a separate party, and many Tea Party followers consider themselves Republicans, as we explain below. We know the Tea Party in Lake County has some clout and organization, resulting in a very organized campaign for Patricia Sullivan, a Republican running against Democrat Alan (My Congressman is Nuts) Grayson. (You can tell my bias). But the national Tea Party and the local one do not believe in starting a new party, but instead to run under either of the two major parties, R or D, and won't support third party... Read more →

Baltimore Mayor Convicted of Embezzlement

One of the reasons that some elected officials get tied up in financial fraud is a tendency of entitlement after they have won or have been in office awhile. I call this a tendency to confuse social confidence with result oriented competence. A results oriented elected official obtains satisfaction from accomplishments, but a visual image or power oriented official obtains satisfaction from what they get when in office, and sometimes anything goes. So, here, the Baltimore Mayor, Sheila Dixon, was convicted of embezzlement for SOLICITING gift cards from local developers "for the needy" and instead using some of them for her own purchases. So, she only got maybe $1000 but killed her reputation, and faces up to five years in prison. The article doesn't say how the problem was uncovered, but a proper control would be having a fraud, waste and abuse reporting hotline, which Lake County does NOT have. The article briefly mentions that Dixon was also charged with financial disclosure violations, which indicates they have one, and monitor compliance in Baltimore. vjFrom CNN here Baltimore mayor guilty of embezzlement December 2, 2009 10:13 a.m. EST (CNN) -- A jury convicted Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon on Tuesday of embezzlement... Read more →

How Government Can Lie With Data - Growing Global Warming Climategate "BAD data" Crisis

Perhaps you have read about the hackers who posted about 1100 emails from a European science center that supports Al Gores Global Warming hypothesis. The emails show a pattern of collusion to modify or drop data so it only supported Global Warming. In my separate blog on corruption, I already posted a lengthy article HERE from the London Times explaining the scandal. It tells how now the guys with all the "underlying data" used to support Global Warming have deleted much of it so the analysis or data cannot be reviewed. Thus the issue is that most of the statements by Al Gore and others about the coming of Global Warming may be a fraud. So, now the issue is moving to the US, where GOP Congress members have sent a letter to the EPA telling them to halt actions and policies based upon the missing data until the quality of the science can be evaluated. This is a clear example of the risk of listening to government officials or policy setting people who control data and they manipulate it to make their case. ALWAYS question the underlying data for data based decisions. If it is not available or clear,then... Read more →

Government Pension Double Dippers in the OTHER Orange County

I moved here in 2006 from Orange County, California - the "Other" orange County, or known as "The OC" due to the TV show with the same name. I frequently get emails on political issues from the OC. There have been periodic articles in the local central Florida press about Florida government pension double dippers, but here is a very good watchdog article from the OC Register newspaper in California, preceded by a comment from a local County Supervisor (like a Commissioner here) John Moorlach. The key point that Moorlach makes is the Orange County County government just increased the retirement age and reduced the government retirement contribution... for their 30,000 or so County government employees ( in California, the local agencies enact such rules, not a central State government). Here is my favorite quote from Moorlach about the change: "The answer? Raise retirement ages. This is low hanging fruit. This is what the County of Orange just did with its largest employee bargaining unit. New hires will not automatically go into a “2.7% @ 55” formula. They will adopt a “1.62% @ 65.” They will be able to adopt the higher benefit, but they will be paying the higher... Read more →

The Federal Debt BEFORE Obama's spending is $486,000 per family household

This stuff about the federal debt is depressing, but this billion dollar "Peter G. Peterson" foundation is new, and was founded by the founder of the Blackstone Group equity fund. He sold out when prices were high, and set up this billion dollar plus foundation to educate the public about the terrible Federal debt and other budget and economic problems being ignored by Federal elected officials. The President is the former head of the Federal GAO, David Walker, who spent his last 2-3 years making presentations all over the US and to Congress on the increasing Federal Debt - and that was BEFORE Obama ran up the debt even more. If you are interested in monitoring this type of subject on the Federal debt, unchecked spending, etc. , go to their homepage at http://www.pgpf.org/and register for free emails. They have just been issuing some grants for teenagers to create online games to educate teens about personal finance, etc so they should be issuing all types of online finance education "tools" over the next few months. Also download and read their "State of the Union's Finances Citizen's Guide" which is where I got the above graphic. They also offer online games... Read more →

Alan Grayson Town Hall on Health Care was STACKED - Only 15 Conservatives admitted

Tavares, FL - US House Rep. Alan Grayson (Democrat) had his first Lake County Town Hall meeting last night in Tavares to mostly "get input" on the proposed Federal Health Care plans (aka Obamacare). So I cover that meeting below plus first a report on an earlier event the same day. Earlier, about 50 members of the North Lake County Tea Party who are against Obamacare "ambushed" Grayson at an earlier 5pm dinner at KiKu restaurant on the east side of Mount Dora. Apparently a Grayson supporter had organized the event for members of the Mt. Dora Chamber of Commerce, and sent out an invitation that appeared to be from Chamber officers, but it was not. One source told me that the invitation upset a lot of Chamber members, but the dinner was held, and about 30 people arrived at the parking lot to find 50 Tea Party members lining the streets with signs opposing Obamacare and other Grayson issues. While waiting for Grayson to appear, many cars going by honked in support of the group. Finally, Grayson appeared, waved to the tea party members and went into the restaurant. At that point, the group adjourned to a tailgate party... Read more →

Ethics 101 - Opinion Article on Politicians "Mistakes" or is it lying?

As we read about lapses in ethics of elected officials, this opinion article blasts the typical newspaper practice to allow a politician to say an ethical lapse was a "mistake" and let them off the hook. This essay is quite good in defining the difference between a REAL mistake, and a politician trying to say their cheating, corruption or lying was really only a "mistake". I plan to create a page on political ethics and policy examples, so this starts a new category on "Ethics in Politics & Government". For example, is it ethical for an elected politician to use hidden political procedures to prevent hidden or un-documented taxes from being discussed in public hearings? vj =================================================== from Orlando Sentinel What they think My Word: Raff Ellis Memo to cheaters: Getting caught is not a 'mistake' Raff Ellis February 22, 2009 Nearly every day someone is in the news with an admission of a "mistake." Politicians do it, sports figures do it, evangelists do it -- it seems even the birds and bees do it. We have become the most mistake-prone society in the world. Just what is a mistake anyway? I remember from my college days a course called... Read more →