Lake County Fiscal Rangers

Lessons for Lake County? Georgia City of 100,000 Outsources EVERYthing and is NOT broke.

Tavares, FL - May 21, 2012

by Vance Jochim

Here is a great video from the Florida Tea party network about Sandy Springs, GA, population 100,000 (bigger than the Villages), which started outsourcing all their programs in 2005 after incorporating as a new city  in Fulton County, GA, and now has NO debt.

Watch the EIGHT minute video first, then return for my comments.  The video was created by Reason.org which is a Libertarian think tank in California.   Then ask your Lake County officials why they are not examining outsourcing services, and why unincorporated Sorrento - Mt. Plymouth is not incorporating as a city and outsourcing services?

http://theteapartynetwork.org/2012/05/a-great-vision-of-municipal-government/   

This city was initially a large unincorporated area in Fulton County, GA, and was taxed by the County for funds spent elsewherein the County.  The County rarely paved or repaired roads.   Democrats controlled the legislature and prevented Sandy Springs from incorporating as a city until 2005 when Republicans took control and allowed the City of Sandy Springs to be established. So, this was all done since 2005.

"Companies are better than managing projects than government, and one contractor provided services for $25-million vs $50-million if run by the county government."

Sandy Springs did not fall into the government "pension trap" and avoided worker defined benefits pension and benefits programs that bankrupt municipalities.

Local Lake County & city officials should have this type of outsourcing on their meeting agenda as part of the budget approval process.  If they don't, aske them why.

References:  Books by Oliver W. Porter

Creating the New City of Sandy Springs

Public/Private Partnerships for Local Governments

Vance Jochim

 

 

 

 

Lauren Ritchie Skewers Leesburg Stealth Program to Blow $30-million Plus on Smart Meters

Tavares, FL - Nov 20, 2011

Leesburg City's attempts to blow through tax money on a smart meter boondoggle has been covered several times in Lauren Ritchie's columns.   It seems it is easy to be the City Commissioners to consider such programs - so be warned - it could happen to you:

Read Lauren's article from today's paper AND read all the comments first HERE.

Here is my comment posted on the website, including "bonus" comments not on the OS site:

Lauren is right. (egads...)!

Leesburg City Manager Jay Evans seems to be practicing methods to ramrod staff supported spending or policy programs through elected official boards much like socialists teach city planners to do for "green" programs really designed to remove property rights.  He seems to use the "Delphi" fake consensus technique of holding meetings with no formal votes and one sided facts to get "public support".  He hides or downplays or delays the true costs (or any costs), allows last minute contract modifications to increase benefits to the contractor, fails to go for public bids again after making significant changes in the contracts, provides one sided back door information to apparently lazy elected officials using emotional pleas.   Another commenter compared this debacle to the County incinerator system, but there was also the Motorola contract.  The Leesburg taxpayers will get screwed for years if they don't wake up.  The biggest problem in Lake County is failure to elect SMART officials who challenge staff on boondoggles like this.  And, then there are all the YouTube videos about smartmeter data uses to violate privacy & radiation hazards of the smart meters.  Lauren hasn't covered that, but radiation leakage is much higher from those meters than cell phones.  But, we all need a tumor to make life interesting.  Leesburg residents could be recognized from odd lumps in their heads.

And, here are some more of my comments since the Sentinel has a limit on words:

- Doesn't the method of pushing this smart meter system through the Leesburg City Commission seem just like how Obamacare was pushed through Congress?  I always say we don't have to just look at Federal government for spending boondoggles because the same situations occur every week someowhere in local Lake County government agencies (or Districts, or CRA's).   Just recently, the Lake County school district floated a $6-million LOAN to finance an energy upgrade system through a division of a utility company because the staff AND Board failed to budget adequately for maintenance over the last several years.  GEE, do you think government staff go to classes held by bond and municipal financing guys on how to push these spending programs past the voters and elected officials?  

- As Lauren says, the program can run $30-million or more (I don't have the details) but I am betting that NOWHERE does Jay Evans, or the Board, if they approve this, say they personally will make up losses if costs are exceeded.  That is one of the problems with government managers, they benefit from poor cost forecasts to justify programs (like SunRail) but RARELY are around when the real numbers come in.   Lake County almost needs a citizen's action committee to verify all budgets, cost justifications, program costs over $1-million, etc. and this is a good example.

- Smartmeters are a favorite of socialists, because they allow collection of data on your energy usage, then later government can use it to force you, or fine you if you use certain energy types during the day.  This is step one in socialism 101.   The real objective is not to "possibly" let YOU adjust energy usage to lower cost times, but to establish a system of central control to force you to follow socialist defined energy usage limits in the future. 

- Socialists don't care about how much of taxpayer funds are used for costly programs like this, since a side benefit is it gives more power to government, or large "public-private" partnerships like utilities that ARE subject to government control.   Socialists want you to depend on government and regulations rather than free will, and smart grids enable their future control of you energy usage. 

- Smartmeters send collected data to central servers using cell phone like devices that have more radiation emissions than cell phones.  Just do a google search on "Smart Meter radiation" and you will find many articles and videos on the issue.  Here is just ONE article.  So, just the issue of health effects is probably enough reason to kill the smart meter program.

- The cost of solar panels keep dropping.  Imagine if it soon becomes cheaper to finance a solar installation on your house and disconnect from the Leesburg power system.  Then I bet the CIT?Y is guaranteeing the bonds or future revenues to GE for the smart meter system, and will RAISE the rates to remaining users as others start disconnecting from the system.  Or, the unrecovered cost will be shifted to general property taxes like the water processing plant boondoggle in one of those South Lake County cities.  

- Please protect all of us from staff driven spending boondoggles by government agencies.

vj

 

Leesburg Better Watch out for those Smart Meters

Leesburg is planning to install a whole mess of "smart" electric meters in local residences.  Without comment, I suggest you pass this article on to their leaders.

Aren't we tired of sales people and lobbyists pushing expensive services and projects on to elected officials and staff without adequate research.  Things like Motorola Radio Systems, Waste processing plants, Repairing railroad tracks, free medical centers for ONLY local School District government employees, smart meters, etc.

Here it is:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/bc-politics/a-dumb-way-to-introduce-smart-meters/article2001596/ 

And, read the comments!

vj

 

 

 

 

When will Lake County, Cities & School District Integrate Purchasing Efforts?

Tavares, Lake County, FL:  The picture at left shows a typical paperwork based purchasing process - and we ask: do we in Lake County need to repeat that convoluted process with duplicative and separate systems (and several may be manual, not computerized) in each Lake County government Agency?  Why don't they all share a single, internet based purchasing system running in the "internet cloud"?  Why don't they consolidate County wide purchases to achieve economies of scale like corporations do on a daily basis?

Local government purchasing departments have an annual fair for vendors to talk to representatives from the purchasing departments of many local Lake County agencies.

I have attended the last two.   I registered as a vendor (consulting) at the first fair, but never heard anything for about a year, but now I get a notice about once every two months for a request for proposal that is not relevant.

The "leaders" of the purchasing fair created a "Pooled Purchasing" website called "Procurement Offices of LAKE" (POOL) within the Lake County website at http://pool.lakecountyfl.gov/ , and it is listed on the County's "Doing Business in Lake County" website.  BUT, if you look at it, it hasn't been updated at all - it contains old events and not ONE purchasing "opportunity" for vendors to apply for.   Good idea, but they either lost their champion or funding.  So that went nowhere.

One of the holy grails is for all the purchasing departments to have a consolidated purchasing systems, but I learned at the Fair that:

1) NO elected leaders or Senior managers (County or City) in the County or Cities were concerned, helpful or supportive of this practice (maybe it was too technical for them?? ).  The existing efforts were purely from purchasing professionals.  Thus there was no political champion to push for collaboration and funding of a centralized purchasing program.  There would need to be a visible official who pushed for conversion to such a system, but there isn't anyone doing it.

2) In order to consolidate purchasing programs, a central, shared purchase request and requisition system would be needed, but most of the cities and County used DIFFERENT methods to code their "commodities" and services, so many of them would have to change their whole system of purchase coding to a central system, and none of them seemed willing to give up their old system or fund the costs to switch.  Also, some purchasing departments were using an external purchasing website that others did not respect.

3) There may be some resistance of local leaders or staff to give up the "power" of deciding who got contracts or purchase awards.   Thus, they are putting self "power" ahead of reduced costs for the taxpayer.  An example would be to use a single distributor of electrical parts at a lower price than each agency selecting favored (and not necessarily most efficient) vendors.

So, here is a challenge to all you elected officials.  You can talk the talk about consolidating purchasing to achieve better prices at reduced "acquisition" costs, but you need to walk the walk by:

1) Providing active support to a phased consolidation of purchasing systems.  Have meetings and workshops with purchasing managers to drive the process with the goal to shift 10% of purchases to a consolidated system every year.  Make it the number one work objective of each Purchasing department and ensure they get IT and other needed support.   We don't need or should have to fund separate purchasing departments for the County, School District, special districts and all cities in Lake County.  I once worked for major companies with offices all over the US, and they ALL had combined, centralized services including Purchasing to achieve economies of scale.  Lake County taxpayers deserve the same approach and efficiency.  If you all use the same electric provider, think in similar terms of creating a consolidated purchasing service agency for the entire County. 

2) Assign a barn burner cost reduction and cost consolidation Czar.  Hire someone from the Manufacturing Industry to run the program since they REALLY understand the need for efficiency.

3) Budget for a centralized system of requisitioning and absorbing the costs of shifting to a central system of purchasing codes for commodities and services.

4) Give up local power of purchases to allow more efficient and reduced cost for government operations.

5) Find out why no one is using that POOL system and get it running or remove it from the websites.

vj

 

 

Notes from Ralph Smith's Lake County Radio Show today - Jan 20 - Mt. Dora Pension Issues & Leesburg Veteran's Memorial

Tavares/Eustis, Florida - Wed., Jan. 20, 2010:

Ralphs local show in on AM790 WLBE each Wed at 11am to noon, and he covers mostly conservative political issues.  The current website for WLBE, which also provides online recordings of shows, is at www.WLBE.org .

Todays show: Guests are from Mt. Dora City Commission and from the Leesburg Veteran's Memorial

- Great news - the Republican won the Senate seat race in Massachusetts to replace Edward Kennedy, which changes the ratio of Dems to Republicans in the Senate from 60 / 40 to 59 / 41, which eliminates the ability of the Dems to ram laws through the Senate without involving any Republicans in the issue.

First Half Hour - Guest was Mt. Dora Councilman Jim Eppich

Note:  If you are concerned about excessive government spending, I recommend you