Fiscal Rangers

Will your local City or County agency be hit with ransomware like Baltimore, costing $18-million?

Will your local city or county government agency get hit with ransomware like Baltimore, MD and then their School District a year later? Read this and pass it on to your local government council or board to educate them and ask for a public hearing on whether they are vulnerable or not. Read more →

How Lake County, FL elected officials are flimflamming property taxpayers

A commentary in the Orlando Sentinel blasted most local City Councils and the County Board for trying to say they reduced property tax millage rates, but since they did not reduce them to the rollback rate, total actual taxes will go up significantly once those officials vote in September to NOT approve rollback rates. Confusing? Yes, so read my article and the linked commentary by Lauren Ritchie. Read more →

Liberty County, FL Supt. of Elections suspended by FL Gov. Ron DeSantis due to $40k fraud

The FL Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended an elected Supt. of Elections in tiny Liberty County, FL (near Tallahassee) for an alleged $40 in fraud (not voter or election fraud) AND Google search has suppressed finding any articles or news about it if you use their search engine. But, Bing found many recent articles. See my updates also. Read more →

What happens to local city and county cash flow if Florida cuts sales taxes like the UK just did to cope with the Wuhan Virus?

The UK just reduced their VAT, or national sales tax, to zero for awhile. What happens if Florida does the same, or the state government reduces tax revenues sent to local governments due to the Wuhan virus crisis? Will we go through layoffs and increased property taxes in Florida and Lake County? Read more →

Florida Government Misanagement Results in Excessive $7+million CEO income for taxpayer funded non-profit after contract abuse found

A small non-profit that received Florida taxpayer funds, the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence (FCADV), refused to disclose spending documents for over a year. Then it was found they paid REALLY excessive income to the CEO, leading to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis initiating reforms and requiring reviews and oversights over ALL non-profits receiving Florida taxpayer funding. Read more →

The new Lake County 2019/2020 Property Tax TRIM Notices are Out - and you need to analyze them

The 2019-20 Lake County, FL property tax TRIM notices are out. We provide an example and some analysis, and tips how to analyze YOUR rates to understand if hidden increases are included. Read more →

Tavares, FL property owners should attend this budget workshop, or open your wallet for higher taxes

Tavares, FL residents need to read this about pending millage rate tax hikes at a City Council workshop on July 24, 2019 at 4pm. These issues of escalating taxes are affecting ALL city and county residents in Lake County and the rest of Florida. If you don't act now, then hold out your wallet for tax day. Read more →

More Lake County, FL Cities and government agencies need to provide Live or uploaded meeting videos!

Local cities and government agencies in Florida, including Lake County, FL, are reducing public transparency by removing most published documents, even for upcoming meeting agendas and staff packets, or annual financial reports or budgets. They are doing it to avoid nuisance lawsuits by roving bands of attorneys suing them for not spending thousands of taxpayer dollars to comply with Federal ADA laws related to "accessibility" for sight and hearing limited users. Read more →

Clermont, FL City Council votes to spend taxpayer funds to appeal a legal decision they lost.

The Clermont City Council lost a legal action to allow a charter school to build on a five acre lot with terrible traffic issues and neighbor complaints. Neither city staff or the Lake County School District wanted the project approved. Now the City attorney convinced the clearly vague Council to approve an expensive appeal of the legal decision. Neighbor opposition leader Dani Page made a video of that meeting which you can watch. The saga continues at taxpayer expense. Read more →

Transparency over local government meeting agendas, minutes, videos, etc. is being damaged by ADA compliance lawsuits

Local governments like cities are being sued because their websites are not completely designed to comply with ADA requirements that were written before the internet was created.  For instance, cities cannot post meeting videos if they don't incur the expense to provide captions that software for the blind or deaf can read and translate so they can understand it.  Thus the benefit of transparency for 97% of the populations are shut down for 3% who complain. Read more →

Will Eustis, FL become Lake County, FL's first Sanctuary City? Left leaning City Council members could do it!

Tavares, FL Oct. 26, 2018 A shorter version of this opinion commentary by Vance Jochim was also posted on CityGrader.com. Updated Oct. 27, 2018 with more facts. The opinions in this commentary are all my own, based upon observations at meetings and my research. Will Eustis, FL, controlled by liberal or RINO (Republican in Name Only) City Council members, become the first Sanctuary City in Lake County, FL? As an active Republican and fiscal watchdog blogger in Lake County, FL, I rate this City a C due to the Democrat or liberal sympathizers on the City Council. I live in nearby Tavares and the contrast of "vision" is quite strong. The City staff are quite competent, and the historic ambiance is great, but the elected leaders with a liberal bias are not helpful. I am a watchdog blogger in Lake County, and have been monitoring Eustis politics for years. They keep electing liberal or do nothing Council members under the cover of "non-partisan" elections, leading to disputes with residents. Under the right circumstances, they could become Lake County's first Sanctuary City. City Elections for City Council candidates are now in progress for the Nov. 6, 2018 elections. The positions are... Read more →

Updated: Eustis, FL City Council overpaid for historic building, sell it for much less to Mayor's friends

The Mayor of the City of Eustis, FL pushed through a $250,000 city purchase of a historic building and adjacent lot appraised at $175,000 and over paid $75,000 for the buys. Then the city will keep the lot valued at $35,000 and sell the building for $160,000 to friends of the Mayor without advertising for any other buyers at the sweetheart price. AND, the city will finance the $160,000 (plus imputed interest of $27,000) sale of the building over five years and only require $500 down and no credit checks or due diligence to ensure ability to pay the taxpayer funded mortgage. This is small town cronyism at it's best. Read more →

Reputable Watchdog Group Report says "Florida Finances Slide Further into the Red" with a "C" Grade and shows Deceitful Practice of not funding $9-billion in Retiree Health Insurance Benefits.

The credible watchdog group Truth in Accounting just published their ratings of different state fiscal management ratings and Florida got a C. One deceitful practice used by Florida is to promise government employees big health insurance benefits, currently totaling over $9-billion, but NOT FUNDING it at all. Thus future taxpayers will inherit the bill for these unfunded benefits. Read more →

Oregon Federal Landgrab over years leads to 150 militia taking over Oregon Wildlife Refuge Building

January 3, 2016 Tavares, FL Property Rights Issue - Another Feds landgrab - This is happening right now in a remote Oregon area, and the mainstream media may not be telling you the story. Neither print newspaper that service Lake County, FL told you about this growing Federal overreach issue in Oregon, but 150 militia folks have taken over a Federal Wildlife Refuge building to protest the arrest and imprisonment of two property owners. Read all the BEST details here - the amazing history of how the Federal government forced out or impoverished many ranchers and now they are fighting back. The Clive Bundy family, who stood up to the Feds attempt to seize land in Nevada are there and this seems to be another property rights issue. Read the details here from conservative sources, not the main stream media. Here is the NBC News video on this. Here is the Washington Post article. Watch for more news on this. Will this be another Waco tragedy led by Obama? Vance Jochim FiscalRangers.com 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 →

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 →

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 →

HUD Loan Guarantee costs taxpayers loss of $4.5-million in Colorado

Oct. 27, 2015 Tavares, FL HUD Waste Report: Colorado Springs, CO taxpayers lost $4+-million when HUD guaranteed $10-million on property loan valued by the local County at $4.5-million, which then failed and shut down. Another HUD fiscal fiasco - this time in Colorado. http://watchdog.org/…/hud-backs-9-5-million-loan-on-propert… Read more →

Federal Government Issues New Ethanol Standards for Fuel & other rules

Tavares, FL June 2, 105 WE are against ANY ethanol in gasoline, but we are still stuck with 10% due to corn industry lobbying that benefits form methanol production. Ethanol DOE damage older car engines as well as outboard motors, lawnmowers, etc. I have to get ethanol free fuel at Harris oil in Mt. Dora to prevent damage to my boat's outboard engine. BOO Iowa! So, read the details here about all the new standards - at least they are not requiring E15, or 15% Ethanol because car manufacturers told the feds they would not honor warranties on existing vehicles in they were forced to run on 15% ethanol. Read more →

Red light cameras are losing profitability for cities and are being removed

Tavares, FL May 20,2015 Red light camera update: Some cameras are being removed by cities who installed them because the State of Florida set longer times for yellow lights, and they aren't catching enough violators to pay the contract costs. Read more here: http://www.wtsp.com/…/more-red-light-cameras-yank…/27552271/ The Tampa Bay paper had a long series on all the problems with red light cameras which resulted in Florida setting longer yellow light times. We don't know how this affects the two local cities with them, Clermont and Apopka. Vance Jochim FiscalRangers.com Read more →

$300+ million per year WASTED in boondoggle Federal project

TAvares, FL May 9, 2015 Waste in Federal Government? Yup - one Federal Dept. of Energy project is so wasteful the Washington Times gave them the "Golden Hammer" award for huge waste of taxpayer funds. The US House just approved a $300-million annual payment for a boondoggle project that has no customers. "This week the Washington Times selected the Department of Energy’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Facility (MOX) for its Golden Hammer, the paper’s award for waste, fraud, and abuse in government. POGO couldn’t agree more. MOX is a total taxpayer boondoggle. It was designed to convert weapons-grade plutonium into mixed-oxide fuel for U.S. commercial nuclear reactors, but the facility is over budget, behind schedule, and lacking even a single customer. Its sole remaining purpose seems to be pork barrel spending for South Carolina. And even by that standard, it’s exorbitantly expensive. A conservative independent assessment by the Aerospace Corp. predicts that continued Congressional funding at the rate of $345 million per year will bring the lifecycle costs of this program to $114 billion." READ about it here in a short POGO article. The link to the original Washington Times article below is included, but they force you to take a... 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 →

Red Light Camera Update: Broward County Judges Throw Out 24,000 Red Light Tickets

March 17, 2015 Tavares, FL Red Light Update: Two Broward County Judges yesterday threw out 24,000 red light camera traffic citations due to them not being personally processed by the Police, which apparently is required. Maybe Clermont and Apopka will shut down their red light cameras also? I hearby classify Red Light Camera systems as a FiscalFiasco and a process that is infused with "waste, fraud & abuse" by government officials. That is why I will rarely ever drive through Apopka or Clermont. Those things are sneaky, dangerous and COSTLY. (I have never been caught by one) VJ Read more →

The whole truth about Common Core math standards and why they will be an un-mitigated disaster.

Tavares, FL FEb. 5, 2015 A well known K-12 math education standards designer, Dr. James Milgrim, provided clear background on why Common Core math standards will result in students never being able to recover vs non Common Core students after four years under Common Core. Milgrim was the ONLY math curriculum designer on the official Common Core validation committee, and he refused to sign off, so his name was removed from the list of participants. In this audio interview from Jan. 4, 2015, Milgrim explains a clear overview of how Common Core math standards were developed. The interview focuses on new Texas TEKS math standards, but they are very close to Common Core standards and apparently from the same development source, the Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin. (The audio was on the Alice Linahan Soundcloud.com channel HERE). You can listen to the 25 minute audio recording, or read our overview below. - Milgrim was the only math expert on the validation committee for Common Core. After seeing the final standards, he refused to sign off on them, and was removed from the Committee member list. - He helped design California math standards implemented in 1997 that... Read more →

Louisiana City Proves Economic Development can be a Sinkhole for $16-million in taxpayer funds

Tavares, FL Feb. 4, 2015 My golden rule is the less you allow government to have, the less they can waste. The City of Vidalia, Louisiana, has "flushed" $16-million of local, state & federal taxpayer funds into a fiscal fiasco plan to build a deepwater port, even though one already exists across the Mississippi river in Natchez. So, not much is happening in the Vidalia port for when they open later this year. They didn't involve private firms in funding the project, so there is no commitment to use it. "Despite assurances of great payoffs, Heather Malone, executive director of the Concordia Parish Economic Development District, said no private interests have taken advantage of the situation and invested in the port’s infrastructure. Port Director Wyly Gilfoil said no one ever discussed the possibility of private interests involving themselves with the port’s construction" At this point, Vidalia officials have no info that any commercial interests will even use the port when it is just as easy to drive across the bridge and use the long existing port at Natchez. Observation: They seem to have made two mistakes: - Committing $16+million in tax funds to the project without any long term committments... 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 →

Local Government FiscalFiasco: Billings, MT waste management employees steal $12,000 from recycling fund

Feb. 3, 2015 Tavares, FL Local Government Lessons Learned: This is an example where a Billings, MT government failed to implement sound cash management policies and employees took $12,000 and they can't prove who did it due to bad cash control procedures. The city of Billings, Montana has released some documents detailing disciplinary actions against Solid Waste employees who misused public money at the landfill. (from billingsgazette.com - dated Jan 28, 2015) A Billings, MT landfill supervisor resigned last summer after at least $12,000 of city money went missing, and another employee was suspended for four weeks. John Arellano, the landfill supervisor, resigned in a handwritten letter dated June 16, 2014. Barb Butler, who was suspended without pay for four weeks, signed an agreement acknowledging her misconduct. Documents detailing discipline of two of the city’s Solid Waste employees last year over alleged misuse of public money at the city landfill were released Tuesday by the city after District Court Judge Michael G. Moses ruled that Billings city officials must provide some of the records to The Billings Gazette. The first batch of documents contained Arellano's hand-written letter of resignation and a "Last Chance Agreement" signed July 15, 2014, by Butler,... Read more →

Lake County FL School Impact Fees Increased but growth costs still 25% Unfunded

Tavares, FL Dec. 7, 2014 The Lake County Board of Commissioners approved an increase in the Lake County School Impact Fees, raising it from an average $2500 per NEWLY constructed home to $7500. The fee is paid by the homebuilder at time of construction completion. HERE is the Orlando Sentinel story on the fee increase. Impact Fees are based upon the amount needed to generate new student stations (i.e. schools and classrooms) due to growth caused by new residents buying the new homes. Existing homes are not taxed, only new ones. The current rate is based upon a consultant's study required by Florida State that defines the average funds needed per home, and the current rate is about $10,200. However, the school district has no received full funding for years, due to waivers by the School Board and the County Board. Thus the approved increase will still not fully fund the added classroom space and facilities needed due to population growth. Here is the comment I posted on the newspaper Facebook page about the impact fee increase: " Well, this really means that the Schools need about $10,200 for every new house to build schools for the new kids from... Read more →

SHOCKING - Daily Commercial NOW says the Lake County, FL County Commission Should Review the Budget

Yes, today the Lake County, FL newspaper, the Daily Commercial, had both a front page article AND an "OurVoice" editorial saying NOW the County Board, after raising taxes by almost 14%, should "get serious about your budget". This article contains a review of a newspaper article, an editorial and my specific responses to the points in them. Read more →

Local Government Fraud Alert: County Finance staffer in Tennessee embezzled $145,000 from Jefferson County, TN funds from 2011 to 2014

Local Government Fraud Alert: County Finance staffer embezzled $145,000 from Jefferson County, TN funds from 2011 to 2014 Read more →

Obama Screws Seniors' Health Coverage - One Person's Experience

A Medicare Advantage Insurance provider, PUP, collapsed this last month and here are all the ramifications based on my experiences. Read more →

Nightmare of Obamacare Presentation by Dr. Tim Moore

Tavares, FL - Nov. 4, 2013 Dr. Tim Moore, a cardivascular surgeon who owns a surgery clinic in Leesburg, FL gave at talk on the "Nightmare of Obamacare" to residents and visitors at the Royal Highlands retirement community in Leesburg, FL on Nov. 4, 2013. Moore's talk is blunt and covers all the Obama lies and the restrictions and true cost analysis that will affect both working and retired folks, so this is a good video and/or Powerpoint to watch, with many researched facts. We have both the Powerpoint and the video. Download Nightmare of Obamacare 2013 <<<< This is the Powerpoint You can find the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSI14Q5OF2I Read the video description also. The best way to watch it is to open a window with the Powerpoint and then another window with the video and click through the Powerpoint as Dr. Moore discusses each. We apologize for the sound, but the microphone was faulty and the hall created an echo due to the placement of the speakers (not under our control). Another version of the video might be uploaded later if we can get it from the owner. Read more →

Shocking Details of Obamacare Website Failure Disclosed in Today's Congressional Hearings

Tavares, FL - Oct. 24, 2013 Note: This version contains updates and my rough notes not shown on other posted versions on Facebook, etc. I am watching CSPAN.org and the Congressional hearing about the Obamacare website failure. It is really clear that the Federal Dept., CMS , was project manager and screwed it all up by bad testing of "end to end" data flow. As a former information systems auditor, they dropped the ball. They also only allowed the last two weeks to test the system "end to end" by following data through all the different vendor and provider systems, when "months" were needed per vendors. They also made last minute changes which then could cause security failures since security tests had been done before the changes, thus any changes could let external hacking to go on. CMS also waited until two weeks before roll out to change the system so NOW the applicant had to supply personal info and register just to shop choices and prices, when Obama earlier promised they could compare choices without doing so. This was called "anonymous shopping", which was turned off. Testimony from CGI indicated it could be turned on if project manager CMS... Read more →

Audit of Lake County, FL Records Management Function Finds Bad Management, Frequent Errors

Tavares, FL - July 8, 2013 Note: The audit, IT Records Management, described here was requested by the Lake County Board, so kudos for them authorizing the audit, but I wonder whether the County management has a clue about how to manage functions effectively. The audit is attached at the end of this posting. Updates to this page will be posted after the July 9th Lake County Board meeting. Opinion A new 10-page audit report from the Lake County Court Clerk's Audit Department found that a one person "Records Management" department within the Lake County IT Department responsible for tracking and storing older County records (not for the Court Clerk, but for the County) had significant problems. This audit report is in the consent agenda for the Tuesday, July 9th, 9am Lake County Board meeting in Tavares in the round County Administration building. Taxpayers concerned about fiscal fiascos and management oversight should attend the meeting or watch it on video via the County agenda page HERE. The audit found: - The Records Management Liasion Officer (RMLO) failed to destroy 54% of all stored boxes of records when scheduled for destruction, resulting in the use of twice the warehouse storage space... Read more →

Lake County Publishes Audit of Controversial Lake County "House of Horrors" Historical Society

Tavares, FL - Thursday, Apr. 25, 2013 - Lake County, FL by Vance Jochim - updates will be added as received. Update: Apr. 29th - Historical elections were held and a new slate was elected and no gunfights broke out - update posted soon on this blog in separate posting. Update Apr. 26th - see details below about today's meetings for elections. An earlier version of this article was also published on the national newswire service WatchdogWire.com HERE. Does Lake County, FL have a HOUSE of HORRORS instead of a Lake County History Museum? A new audit indicates that might be the case, and it is a House of Mis-Management Horrors right here in Lake County. The Lake County Board of Commissioners requested that the Court Clerk's Audit Office audit the operations and financial records of the Lake County Historical Society which manages the Lake County History Museum under an agreement with the County. It was published today in order to be available before tomorrow's April 26th Historical Society Board Meeting. It is a GOOD audit report indicating an appalling situation where many poor or illegal procedures are used. No inventory exists anywhere of an estimated 2,000 to 5,000 items... Read more →

Stupid Government Mistakes: Polk County overcharges residents for garbage pickups by $1.46-million

Jan 14, 2013 - Tavares, FL Apparently, starting seven years ago, Polk County, FL staff used an incorrect method that resulted in providing incorrect, sometimes vacant addresses for garbage pickup to the local waste services firm they had on contract. This blunder went on for seven years, and the County overcharged residents $1.46-million over the 7 years, and then paid the funds to the waste services firm. Now the County is trying to get the waste provider to pay back the funds even though the County made the mistake.Teh Board is trying to blame the vendor for the issue, but that is like trying to get an employee to pay back excess paychecks due to a blunder by staff, especially 7 years later. My experience as an internal audit manager for 18 years is that both government and companies many times has low level staff make decisions without oversight or performance audits and these things go on for years. At Nissan Motor Corp., staff used the wrong formula to set reserves for auto warranties, and they over collected the reserves by $1-million. Once the mistake was found by internal audit, that $1-million went right to the "bottom line". Good luck...... Read more →

Lake County Fails to Invoice Pet Owners for $500,000 to $1-million in Annual Fees

Tavares, FL - Jan. 9, 2013 Normally, I support any reduction in taxes as a general principal. But, what if you paid $2000 in annual property taxes, then found the County Tax Collector was not issuing tax bills to all the residents of the Plantations retirement community? Or, you were a law firm partner and found staff was not billing clients who graduated from Eustis High School? Would you be mad? Well, Lake County did just that until a recent audit report described in the Daily Commercial. They were not invoicing pet owners for State required pet license renewals or failure to get tags. And, if they had fees like surrounding counties, they could have collected $500,000 per year at least to offset costs of the Animal Services Dept. And, if a pet was found without tags, they only issued warnings and not citations that resulted in fines. The result is another estimated $531,000 lost. Since the Animal Services Dept. is funded with over $1-million from the general fund which is mostly funded by your property tax funds, all homeowners are paying to highly subsidize pet owners and animal services rather than just pet owners paying the costs for Animal... Read more →

Bloomberg News seeks Investigative Reporter in New York

I just decided to post this for reference. vj Investigative Reporter Job Bloomberg 29 reviews - New York, NY The Projects and Investigations Team is looking for a reporter to produce signature investigative stories that uncover wrongdoing, corruption and financial shenanigans; afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted; and break big news. This job will be located in New York City. Qualifications: 5+ years of experience working tirelessly and independently, whether covering a beat, company or market, and the ability to dig beneath the surface, using documents, clever sourcing and common sense to excavate the facts. Experience investigating finance and financial institutions preferred. Writing skills to convert raw, undigested material into compelling prose that will move readers and, when appropriate, spur reform. Read more →

Orlando CFO Screws Up and Awards 8.7-million Contract WITHOUT Competitive Bidding

Tavares, lake County, FL - Thursday, Dec. 20,2012 The City of Orlando CFO, Rebecca Sutton, signed a major software contract for $8.7-million without requiring any bids on the new software project. Then she flew with several other staff members to Las Vegas using $20,000 in City funds to announce the contract at the software developer's conference. All this without any bidding. The Orlando Sentinel provided many details HERE. (Note - READ the comments, which are more blunt than I am). I was a software developer for seven years, and before that I was an internal audit manager in large firms like Nissan, ARCO (the oil company) and the County of Los Angeles. A big red flag to an auditor is lack of competitive bidding, called sole sourcing, for large contracts. The Orlando CFO completely skipped that process because some sales people got to her and convinced her there was no need for competitive bidding. YOU NEVER DO THAT IF YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL. You always go through the bidding for several reasons: - The competitors ask questions and flush out details or issues you did not consider. Picking just one vendor allows them to snow you with only favorable features... Read more →

British Government Bidding Fiasco Provides Lessons for All Government Staff & Officials

British government staff screwed up the bidding process so much for operating a privatized train line that several leaders and staff were fired and the government had to repay four bidders about $60-million in bidding costs they lost. England has privatized their rail system and recently held high stakes bidding for the firm that would operate a major west coast line. Apparently, Richard Branson's Virgin Brand was running it at the time and but lost the contract bidding to renew their operations contract. Branson filed a protest citing problems with the way the bid ranking was calculated, and it turned out he was right. Apparently the method used to score winning bids was faulty and didn't include factors for inflation and accurate methods of forecasting growth in rail traffic. It was so bad that several staff and leaders were fired. A quote in one article said the government needs to get procurement specialists at the same level as the business world. This brings me to recite my mantra - the public deserves the same quality management in government agencies as used in major corporations, and doesn't always get it. That is why it is imperative to elect officials with large... Read more →

Broward County, FL Inspector General Issues First Report and blasts County Economic & Small Biz Development

The new Broward County Inspector General just issued a report blasting the total mis-management of a County run small business certification program designed to give County contracts a local preference. Only local government could create a $750,000 fiscal fiasco like this (or State or Federal Government.). I can't stop - there is a basic management rule cited by Ronald Reagan - "Trust but verify", but these county managers trusted, but didn't verify the vendors' true eligibility for local government contracts. Best quotes: “The OIG determined that at least $750,000 in public funds, and in all probability a lot more has been misspent as a result of gross mismanagement by the OESBD,’’ Scott said Friday. “Our office is going to work with county government to make sure this doesn’t happen.’’ In one instance, the Inspector General found that a county vendor, Everytrade International Company, was awarded 37 county contracts worth nearly $750,000 since June 2007. At least 35 of those contracts required the vendor to be certified as a Small Business Enterprise, which gives the designated company exclusive access to certain county contracts and preference in the procurement process. But according to the Inspector General, Everytrade International is actually a brokerage... Read more →

Miami-Dade Inspector General Rebukes Jackson Health System for Failed Contractor Procedures

Once again, another Florida Hospital, Jackson Health Systems, screwed up again. According to their local County Inspector General, they awarded sole source contracts for "emergency venitlation and air conditioning" work to a contract without competitive bids. They awarded $1.7-million in contracts to CT Mechanical, which then submitted vague lump sum invoices and failed to get building permits on 17 projects. http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/14/2454079/inspector-general-criticizes-jackson.html This all happened while they already had two local businesses approved for the work. The Jackson Health Systems staff claimed the work was only awarded to CT Mechanical because Jackson was so poor in paying vendors that few would do the work for them. Anyway, this shows that a Inspector General is what is needed to unveil these types of practices, and Lake County does NOT have one. Since our own North Lake County Hospital District gives $9-12 million to three local hospitals without any spending rules or internal audits (they have financial audits, which are different), the hospitals could be doing the same thing and the taxpayers would not have a clue. Watch this blog for updates on the North Lake County Hospital District. And, probably more on Jackson Health, since they seem to have a screwup about... Read more →

Desperate Obama Finally Considers Action to Outshine Lake County Officials and Reduce Foreclosure Problems

Tavares, FL - July 23, 2003 - We have hammered local officials about the lack of programs to fix the foreclosure problem in Lake County. So, the local Republicans haven't acted, and now the Big Liberal, himself, might initiate an action that could reduce blight caused by foreclosed and empty homes. Local officials could have at least passed ordnances forcing owners of foreclosed homes to pay homeowner association fees so other owners weren't stuck with the common ground costs. But, no action has been initiated to my knowledge. They also could have taken the initiative using Economic Development, CDBG or Tourism taxes to create a Realtor driven co-op marketing plan to snowbirds to buy local foreclosures in a streamlined process - but they haven't. The County has staff organized Green FAIRS and conferences and literature, so why can't they used that "community building" and "program management" expertise to develop foreclosure fixing problems? The Federal Government "owns" many foreclosed homes, so now they are considering RENTING them. What a concept. Local banks and investors who own homes should also consider doing that. Here is the Wall St. Journal article, unfortunately they force you to "subscribe" to read the whole article, so... Read more →

108 Miles of Lake County Roads Belong to the Cities - so who pays for Maintenance?

Tavares, FL - June 25, 2011 - Yup - here is another stupid Lake County government Fiscal Fiasco. If you are a County resident, would you be mad if you found the County was using YOUR tax funds (mostly sales taxes, not property taxes) to repair and maintain ROADS within city limits, and city resident taxes are not being used for the repairs, even though they LIVE or WORK on the street? Are you in a city, paying city property taxes, and the nearby road and sidewalks are not repaired because the City tells you "that is up to the County". The CITY should be doing the repairs using your property taxes or sales tax revenues they get (or other sources). It seems that a number of cities keep growing by annexing neighborhoods and businesses. That means the CITY gets the property tax at CITY tax rates (usually higher than the County), and the properties go off the tax rolls of the County Government, reducing their revenues. That is normal. Note: I if you know someone who should read this, please forward this to them, and ask them to LIKE our "FiscalRangers" Facebook page. But, what came out at recent... Read more →