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

 

 

 

 

Lake County, FL Sheriff IT System HACKED and data stolen

The Lake County Sheriff's Dept was hacked by people who downloaded about 40gb of files from the Sheriff's servers.  That is not a good indicator of their knowledge about computer security.  As a former corporate internal auditor and certified information systems auditor, my observation is most law enforcement departments (Police & Sheriff) are still stuck in focusing on physical crimes using kinesthetic staff, and not focusing on intellectual crimes requiring people with technical degrees.  This is the result. 

I would recommend the Sheriff create an anti-hacking & IT Controls  committee of volunteers, much like the County Board and School Board have committees, and have them review both internal IT practices and ability to act when local IT crimes are reported.  

I tried contacting the Sheriff's public information officer, but no one answered either phone.

However, the articles below give a good overview of the incident.

http://www.dailycommercial.com/News/LakeCounty/050212hacking

http://www.cfnews13.com/content/news/cfnews13/news/article.html/content/news/articles/cfn/2012/4/30/hackers_target_lake_.html  

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-lk-sheriff-office-hacked-20120430,0,1956813.story 

 

 

 

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 with negligible business space, no inventory, no warehouse and no full-time employees other than its owner, Jose de la Riva Aguero.

And more:

The Inspector General’s report also singled out Norman Taylor, director of the county’s OESBD for improperly certifying brokers to participate in the SBE program.

“The OESB has failed to develop suitable guidelines addressing certification requirements for applicants; failed to ensure that those guidelines which were established were fairly and consistently applied to all vendors; and ignored evidence that brokers were exploiting their SBE certifications,’’ the report states. “In addition, the OESBD’s documentation and record keeping practices have been inadequate, further hampering enforcement and oversight of the SBE certification process.’’

Read the details here:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/16/2549235/broward-inspector-general-finds.html 

This kind of reminds me of the Lake County fiasco regarding house renovation grants when the "program manager" was left unsupervised and gave grants to relatives, out of county vendors, etc. 

The Broward County Administrator should also be held accountable for not making sure that proper management control processes were in place, and verified.  But the article doesn't mention any such sanctions. 

vj

 

 

 

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 every two months.  Apparently Florida State government doesn't exercise any oversight on fiscal screwups of Hospitals.

vj

 

Excessive Salaries of North Lake Hospitals Compared to Orlando Expressway Authority

Tavares, FL - Oct. 8, 2011 - Actually, we aren't comparing the salaries, but discussing the relevancy of high salaries paid to managers running the two local Hospitals, Leesburg and Waterman, when taxpayers are asked to subsidize their non-profit PRIVATE corporations with $8-12-million of taxpayer funds.

The North Lake County Hospital District extracts $8-12 million per year from local property owners for corporate welfare payments to the Hospitals, but there are no salary caps until the hospitals give up the 40 year subsidies.  Only two hospitals(a third gets a small share) receive the hospital, while all other local clinics that provide similar services have no ability to apply for or receive payments, which is anti-competitive.

Efforts are underway by Florida state Rep. Larry Metz to revamp the regulations for the District to define spending rules, remove the "entitlement" feature of only giving the money to two hospitals (which they claim is for indigent care, but no rules specify that) rather than all clinics providing such services, and also require the first ever referendum and voter approval on the tax for many taxpayers.

We have advocated that the Board members of the District, and the Florida regulations establishing the District should mandate salary caps on top managers so no one receives a salary greater than the Superintendent of Lake County Schools, which is about $165,000.   Instead, several officers in both hospitals continue to receive $400,000 plus bonuses while still demanding taxpayer subsidies for their operations.

Now, a Florida State Senator is advocating the same position related to the "top staff" of the Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority, which has had a number of scandals recently.  The Authority receives about the same $8-million from the State that local hospitals receive from North Lake taxpayers.   Florida State Senator Don Gaetz, (R) Niceville , is asking why Expressway top staff salaries exceed the level of the $140,000 which is the salary of the Florida State Dept. of Transportation Secretary.  It seems, like the North Lake Hospitals, the Expressway Authority is paying excessive salaries like $247,000 (much less than hospital salaries) and it IS a government related agency funded by the State (and tolls).

Here are some quotes from the Orlando Sentinel article:

Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said Friday that no one working for a state-charted road authority should make more than the $140,000 paid annually to Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Ananth Prasad.

Six administrators at the Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority have higher salaries than Prasad, with director Mike Snyder leading at more than $247,000 a year. Snyder declined to comment Friday.

Two deputy directors, the general counsel, the director of construction and the chief financial officer all make more than Prasad as well.

Gaetz said if the authority can afford such salaries, it should not receive any money from the state, which is facing about $2 billion in cuts to its budget this coming year because of the faltering economy.

So, when you hear North Lake Hospital managers whining that they need continued funding of Hospital Tax subsidies without any votes and without any spending guidelines, you might also ask why shouldn't they have salary caps for top staff like that being demanded of the Expressway Authority.  Or, like Senator Gaetz, you might ask why not eliminate the hospital tax subsidy completely if they can afford such salaries.

vj

Here is the Orlando Sentinel article regarding the Expressway wages

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/os-salaries-snyder-gaetz-20111007,0,7691990.story

Florida Convenes Government Efficiency Task Force & Some Appointments are Made

Tavares, FL - July 30, 2011 - In 2007, the Florida legislature established a Government Efficiency Task Force that meets only once every four years.  It seems it meets the first year AFTER a Governor election is held.

The 15 member panel is made up of five appointments from the Governor, five from the Speaker of the House, and five from the President of the Florida Senate.

There are also many other committee appointments listed

What Should Local Voters do When their Elected Officials Have no Initiative?

Tavares, FL - June 24, 2011 - I went to a meeting recently where about 20 concerned local residents (not the Tea Party) were gathered to discuss why their area was not improving economically.  Their businesses were slowly declining and nothing much was happening.   There was a lot of griping about the lack of action by the local elected officials and the manager of their local area (not the County).  

After lots of discussion, they came to the conclusion their elected officials were part of the problem by not pushing the manager to establish measurable economic development objectives and implement them.

It seems that one local high flying city does that, and their success is aggravating others without positive economic leadership.

As always, I threw in my suggestion that foreclosures were a big part of the problem.  Since I have not been able (yet) to get the Lake County County Commissioners to set up an action plan, I suggested this group add it to their list.  I think it got lost somewhere during the discussion about trees.

But, there were some heavy hitters from local bigger businesses, and the consensus resulted in the plan to do a survey and get feedback from local residents about their feelings on the local government "progress".  Then, to take that survey (assumed to be nagative)  to the local elected official's meeting and demand

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 corn to be used for subsidized fuel like Ethanol.  Af, food prices are leaping.

To be fair, however, if you do research, you will find that Republicans, including Ronald Reagan also ran up debt - but he did it to finance defense spending so as to bankrupt the soviets, which he did, thus Russia's economy  collapsed, the Berlin wall came down, and the cold war ended.  Then Bill Clinton came into office, and he apparently understood economics, and reduced the federal deficit to almost nothing.  Then it started going up again and Obama has hit new heights in deficit spending which creates debt.

So, below is one of many emails generated by political pundit Dick Morris on the coming inflation.  So, each time you pay more for goods and services, be sure to thank the current Democrats and Republicans who also voted for the spending programs for ignoring economics.

Several inflation aspects will hit local governments.  One is

Understanding Local Corporate Welfare & Identifying True Fiscal Conservatives

Tavares, FL - April 13, 2011 -  Today, I gave a presentation at the Lake  Federation Republican Women's Club in Tavares.

It was on these two topics:

- Understanding Corporate Welfare and Local Lake County Examples

- Identifying Behaviors of True Fiscal Conservatives (vs liberals or Republicans in Name Only).

Attached is the Powerpoint slide presentation.   It has over 20 specific fiscal conservative actions that I recommend for elected officials to show they actually are fiscal conservatives.

Download 2011-04-13 LFRWC Preso

Enjoy.

Vance Jochim

FiscalRangers AT Comcast DOT net

 

Florida Government Agencies should be Mandated to Use Charts Like This

Tavares, FL - Apr. 11, 2011 - In Lake County, FL , I have been watching union negotiations for wages.  I have been preaching for maybe two years that the Administration and Board of the Lake County School District (and the Board of the County Commissioners) should develop statistics like the chart referenced on the link below.

http://thathero.com/2011/04/11/oea-shared-sacrifice/

It is about Ohio wage patterns, and shows average wages of both union and private industry workers.

Such charts should be mandatory for use when any government agency starts setting wage and benefits for government workers.

Now, the chart is for Ohio, which is not a right to work State (Florida is), so the disparities between union and private wages are larger than you would find in Florida, but the idea is that no goverment elected officials should approve any wage and benefit increases without comparing trends like this, and for unemployment, benefits, pensions, etc.

Government employees need to be paid within reason, and not excessively.

vj