Lake County Fiscal Rangers

Lake County Republican "Listening Tour" Set for 5 Locations - BE there to provide input

May 22, 2012 - Tavares, FL

This is the official press release from the Lake County Republican Executive Committee

============================================================

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 17, 2012

Contact: Alan Winslow, Chairman

352-742-9953

dional99@aol.com

Lake County Republicans Get Innovative, Host Five “Listening Tours”

Reaffirming the Importance of Grassroots Involvement, a Series of Town

Hall Meetings is Scheduled Across Lake County.

In preparation for the upcoming elections, the Lake County Republican Party is seeking to increase the involvement of Republicans across the county. Alan Winslow, Chair of the Lake County Republican Executive Committee, stated “Our party is already actively engaged in the 2012 Election Campaign, but our Lake County Executive Committee wants to ensure that we are addressing the vision and the expectations local Republicans have for their Party.  Valuing the experiences and insight of our local supporters, we are confident that enlarging the input of local citizens can only strengthen our Party and positively contribute to a successful campaign in 2012.”  

As our nation stands at a crossroads, so does Lake County. “Over the past three years, we have seen an explosion of citizen interest in how we are being governed”, said newly elected Lake County Republican State Committeewoma n, Patricia Sullivan. She continued, “People have distinct opinions about the direction government is headed, and it has resulted in a flood of grassroots activists. Their input is valuable, and desired.”

In calling for the Listening Tours, Republican leaders appointed a committee to organize a series of gatherings fashioned after town hall meetings. The meetings will be held across the county in five locations easily accessible from all population centers.

Mike Levine, one of the upcoming Listening Tour facilitators, shared that “Participants will be encouraged to communicate their vision for the role of the Lake County Republican Party in the 2012 Election cycle and voice their expectations for the values and priorities that the party should embrace.” Mr. Levine currently serves as a District Representative for the Republican Executive Committee in the South Lake area.

Everyone is encouraged to attend and play a vocal role.

Once the input is gathered, the Lake County Republican Executive Committee will put together a plan of action to advance the recommendations.

For more information regarding the locations of the Listening Tour, visit www.lakecountyrepublicans.org or email listeningtour@lcrec.us

DATE                                        LOCATION                                ADDRESS

Tuesday, May 29                      Community Building                237 W Gauva St,  Lady Lake

Wednesday May 30                  Lakeside Inn                            100 N Alexander St., Mt Dora

Thursday May 31                     Astor Community Center         24148 Ann St.,  Astor

Monday, June 4                        Community Building                109 E Dixie Ave, Leesburg

Tuesday, June 5                       Jenkins Auditorium                 691 W. Montrose Ave, Clermont                     

Doors open at 6:30pm begins at 7:00pm

FiscalRangers.com Update on Lake County School Board & Tomorrow's Lake County Board Meeting

Tavares, FL - May 7, 2012 (This is a duplicate of an email sent out today to our FiscalRangers.com email list.)

First, an overview of an issue at today’s Lake County School Board meeting which might save taxpayers $400,000, and then read items I have selected from the agenda for tomorrow’s Lake County Board meeting, and finally “other news” about local candidate forum events and an upcoming meeting of the North Lake County Hospital District.

In my opinion, the item under Lake County's Agenda (belows) tab 24 needs Board attention.  Once again, the Board is asked to approve the annual CDBG Federal grant programs, and little details are provided for early analysis, and we point out some issues from last year’s CDBG discussions.

Lake County School Board today

 – Cutting FREE transportation to Orange County Charter School Could Save $400,000 -  At today's Board meeting, the School District staff requested Board approval to turn off paying for transportation to Princeton school in Orange County for about 32 autistic kids in order to save about $400,000.   They want the kids to go to Lake County facilities and services, which were not available 7 years ago when the students were sent out of County.   8 parents showed up and pleaded to keep kids at Princeton.    Lake County is talking about giving them a choice (no final decision yet) to keep going to Princeton but not get County buses, or go to Lake County special centers that NOW exist which can handle autistic kids.    By doing this, County will reduce transportation costs by at least 400k for just 32 kids.  If you need accurate info, confirm details with Nancy Velez at the School Board.    The County does NOT pay for transportation to any Lake County charter schools, so why pay it for one in Orange County?   Apparently the one in Orange County won’t even provide transportation for Orange County kids.   No final decision was made until more info is received and a committee is formed to determine.  Kudos to School District staff Judy Miller & Nancy Velez for bringing this up to the Board. I thought it was a very good presentation of analysis by the staff, trying to find ways to reduce costs, and I agree with this. 

Lake County Board of Commissioners meeting tomorrow (Tuesday, May 8) – here are some interesting agenda items:    – Agenda is HERE

-          Tab 16 – LEACHATE Disposal Contract ( $500,000) -  500k contract for leachate disposal.  No info explaining why they need to do this, how we got leachate, what it is, or any indication they have a plan to reduce future leachate disposal costs.  This item is on the “consent agenda” which means unless a Board member asks that it be “pulled” for discussion, no more “facts” will be provided and no Board discussion, and 500k will be spent without providing the types of details we describe above.

-          Tab 18 – Re-Financing $10-million loan with Hancock Bank – not all fees or costs described.  County has a $10-million loan agreement with Hancock Bank which was part of the financing source of paying for the notorious Motorola radio system that cost more than $30-million a few years ago.   Agenda claims they will save 170k but they don’t have total COSTS of the deal, i.e. bond counsel and consultant fees.    School District did similar thing recently for refinancing a $32-million bond (I think) and had fees over 170k.   So the issue is whether they are pushing this to generate advisor fees and get small savings.   Also it is worse if they don’t keep length of new financing at same length as what is left on the current loan.  This should not be the final decision.     This item is on the “consent agenda” which means unless a Board member asks that it be “pulled” for discussion, no more “facts” will be provided and no Board discussion.  That means the Board is letting this go through without having the full costs of the re-financing, or knowing if the term was expanded.   Thus, is this a boondoggle for bond counsels to earn fees, or is there a genuine, total savings worth the time.  And, did they include the cost of internal staff time to do work on this?    (Note:  The School Board was much better in providing details and getting solid estimates that this BCC item where it might sail through without discussion.  Is staff or friends of the bond counsel trying to pull a fast one?   Until I see much better details and analysis on high cost items like this, I will keep saying that. 

-          Presentations – no real details to know if these are routine – no files on agenda page for items 20-23

• Tab 20 – Quarterly budget report – wait and see – no details provided.
• Tab 21 – Lake County Health Dept update – no info provided, but I plan to ask if they are open to running administration for reformed plan for North Lake County Hospital District
• Tab 22 – Economic Development – this is their required monthly report to the Board, but no details were provided as an attachment.
• Tab 23 – Update on construction (probably includes the new Courthouse and unexpected costs for security and staffing they never budgeted for – about $1-million impact) – NO DETAILS provided.  Sometimes this periodic report is used as a backdoor vehicle to ask Board approval on a project budget, etc. so you have to watch what happens because they don’t describe it in the agenda.
  • “The Lake County Facilities Development and Management Department is managing the improvements to several facilities. Examples of these projects include: Animal Services Building Renovation, Astor Substation Renovation, Combined Fleet Operations Center, Emergency Communications and Operations Center, Fire Station 10 Mold Remediation, Fire Station 112 Mold Remediation, Historic Courthouse (HCH) Renovation, Judicial Center Expansion, Leesburg Health Clinic Building, Radio Operations Center, Road Operations Center Expansion, South Lake Health Department Clinic Building.”
• Tab 24 – CDBG Budget – $967,000 -  This is a Federal “block grant” that the County has received for years and they pay funds out to different social service programs.  Last year, Leslie Campione noted that some of the programs have been going on for YEARS with no change, and perhaps they need to change priorities.  So, let’s see if Director Dottie Keedy and County Manager Darren Gray remember that and maybe reduce or cut funding for some routine programs for some needed now (I recommended job placement training programs, and programs to find a way to fill all the foreclosures which I think have higher priority.).   Some of the prior programs provide funds for services now also provided by many other charities, so why continue funding them and instead select more current priorities.   You can see the furnished list of projects proposed in the budget HERE.  (see attachment also since the County software is horrible and the hyperlinks don’t open the page directly. )   The provided project list doesn’t provide all details – they list “Community Projects” at $458,000 but do not list them.   Last year, there were some controversial projects funded where there was little explanation about how the funds would be spent or any method to measure the value of the project and spending effectiveness.   The Board needs to have staff walk through each item and examine whether they should be curtailed.   Matter of fact, the Board should determine priorities FIRST after discussing all types of projects that can be funded with the CDBG grants, THEN review and prioritize projects.   As it is, the information provided is vague, general and not conducive to determine what the value is of the projects.  My experience is that the explanations of CDBG grants is usually weak, just spending on the same things and without discussing methods to rank value or effectiveness of the programs.   There isn’t even a comparison of prior spending on programs compared to this list, or indication that anyone determined that last year’s spending was effective and had value.   Watch the Board to see if they take this seriously, or they rubber stamp projects that have been going on for years…

Other News: 

-          The North Lake County Hospital District will be having a special meeting on Wed., May 16 (NEXT week) to discuss how to implement the reform bill that was passed by the Legislature.  Details to follow early next week.

-          Several groups are having candidate forums for announced candidates for local Lake County offices, including School Board, County Commissioners, Constitutional Officers.   The Lake Federated Women’s club is having one, the South Lake 912 Group is having one, the North Lake Tea party is having several.   Also, the Lake County Conservative Founder’s club is having one.   Check out the Lake County Republican’s FACEBOOK page at https://www.facebook.com/LakeGOP  to see the event details under “events” – starting tomorrow afternoon).

Vance Jochim

Lake County Fiscal Rangers

Chief Fiscal Watchdog

Volunteers Searching for Ways to Improve Local Government Fiscal Management, Efficiency & Effectiveness

PO Box 1042

Tavares, FL 32778

Mobile:  352-638-3578

FiscalRangers@comcast.net

www.FiscalRangers.com   

TWITTER:  @FiscalRangers 

Fiscal Ranger's page on Facebook

CLICK HERE to see recommended internet links related to Local Lake County government fiscal issues.

 

 

 

 

Petition Card Counts & Status for Candidates for Lake County, FL Offices

2012 Local Lake County, FL Election Candidates and Petition Card Counts as of Friday, May 4

As of Friday, May 4, 2012
by Vance Jochim
FiscalRangers@Comcast.net
   

Most candidates for elected office in Lake County have turned in the required number of election petition cards exept Jim Miller and Paul Richardson, who are very nearly there. 

Additionally, four candidates are not turning in the required 1951 cards, and apparently plan to pay required fees in June.

This report doesn't cover Judges or State elected positions like a State Rep.

That information would be on the State Elections website, while Lake County specific candidates are listed on the local Lake County Elections Superintendent website (see link below).

Candidates running for major elected positions in Lake County are required to turn in 1951 validated petition cards signed by registered voters, or pay a fee ranging from about $1500 to $8000.

We visited the Lake County, FL Elections Dept. today, May 4th, to examine the progress of announced candidates in collecting petition cards.

You can find the official, updated list of candidates at the link below.  The Excel version has more data, but neither list provides petition card status like we furnish below.
http://elections.lakecountyfl.gov/candidate_information/index.asp        

We found that most candidates have

Jim Krakowski Comments on Apr. 2 Lake County School Board Meeting

Guest Columnist: Jim Krakowski

===================================================

My comments / observation regarding April 2, 2012 Lake County (FL) School Board Meeting.

(Jim Krakowski 4/4/12)   -  Krakowski is active in the South Lake County 912/Tea Party

April 2nd “special” school board meeting focused on three issues … one dealing with finances, one with operations and one with education.

Finance:  There are approximately $16 million of bonds funded by sales taxes that can be “re-financed” at a much lower rate.  According to the districts CFO (Carol MacLeod) these bonds have a current interest rate of 3% - 5% and can be refinanced at 1.22%. 

The district currently has over $39 million of funds that are earmarked for capital projects.  Impact fees generated these funds.  I asked “… is it possible to

National Website Monitors "State Integrity" and Ranks States - Florida is a C-

Tavares, FL - March 20, 2012

I found a new website that is run by a number pf public integrity types of organizations, and they rank all the States by several categories and rank their "Corruption Risk".

Here is Florida's page, which shows abysmal rankings in most categories, and an average C- in Corruption Risk .  Even with that ranking, they are 18th out of all the states, which shows how much worse other states are.

http://www.stateintegrity.org/florida  

I noticed that they ranked "Internal Audit" as one of the only "A" categories, so I posted this comment:

As a former corporate internal audit director, Certified Internal Auditor and anti-corruption adviser, I was amazed to see you give Florida an A for internal audit.  I write a blog on local Lake County, FL government agency fiscal fiascos and mis-management at www.FiscalRangers.com .  After five years of monitoring issues here, I do not believe there is ANY oversight on about 2000 local government agencies comparable to what I saw in Fortune 500 firms, the County of Los Angeles or even the Federal government.   They may do nice, clean "financial audits" but the Inspector General has no authority to initiate performance or internal audits of local agencies, including water districts, hospital districts, special tax districts, etc.  

There are no requirements for independent County auditors and the audits conducted by the Florida Inspector General are conducted by CPA's, not CIA's or CFE's to catch performance and efficiency problems.

For instance, we had a local Hospital tax district that existed for 40 years without ANY spending rules on how more than $10-million would be spent by two named non-profit hospitals.  They could spend it on pink flamingos for the lawn and be legal.   It took locals 4 years to finally get a Legislator who wrote a much improved bill governing them, and it was barely passed recently due to insider tricks by a Hospital supported State Senatory.

You might find one internal "operational audit" of a single Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) by the Inspector General, but if lots of problems are found, they don't go out and review the other CRA's for similar problems.   Florida is still a Huckster State with little oversight.   The one benefit is a good sunshine law, so local people can do their own research to find stupid government practices.   My mantra is that government should be run as well as corporations, and Florida local government agencies lack professional oversight from the State or local internal auditors, and waste is rampant.  .

vj

Lake County School Impact Fees - Will Two Boards Vote to Re-instate them, or Support Builder Welfare and Waive them for another year?

Lake County, FL - Feb. 27, 2012

An Important Decision Regarding Approval or Waiver of School Impact Fees will be discussed at the Lake County School District meeting on Monday.

On Monday, the 27^th, at a 2:15 pm “Special Meeting”, the School board will vote on impact fee recommendations (see the attached agenda) to be sent to the Lake County Board, and the next day, the 28^th, the Lake County Board will decide whether to continue an existing waiver, or approve impact fees with or without the information sent by the School Board.  You can get more details on the agenda at the School Board “Board Docs” section HERE, and the Lake County Board meetings page HERE. 

This has been an ongoing issue with contention between Board members of the School District who would not vote on a recommended impact fee schedule to be sent to the County Board.  The County Board is the final approver of the School Impact Fee schedule.   Currently, a 15 month waiver passed by the County Board will expire at the end of March.  

The School Board sent a required consultant’s study to the County Board a few months ago, but without any vote recommendations whether the full fees or partial fees (which was done previously) should be charged, or the waiver should be extended another year.

The problem is that Members on both Boards have sold out to the Builder’s organizations and the Right Side of the Lake Blog, and believe that waiving impact fees to builders (both residential and commercial) was more important than maintaining a revenue source for the Schools.  The School staff estimates that the 15 month waiver cost them about $6-million in revenue, and they need the funds for other capital projects that have been deferred.  (Impact fees can only be spent on capital projects and not maintenance, salaries, supplies, etc.).    I will let the school staff at the meeting describe exactly what the funds can be used for, but I do know they have a backlog of capital projects, which could include rebuilding some 50 year old schools (?).   It would be much simpler if the funds could be spent for any purpose like maintenance, but stupid Florida and local laws are too restrictive on how funds from specific sources can be spent (which is another major problem).

County Board members have complained that the School Board needs to go on the record with a formal vote on their recommendation, rather than just saying “a consensus is there is no consensus”.

So, as the attached agenda says, they will VOTE on a recommended impact fee rate or waiver on Monday, and the Lake County Board will then use that information to make the final decision on the School impact fee rates, or waive it again.    My belief is there are too many Board members in the pocket of the Homebuilders and Developers, and when they vote to take revenues away from schools to subsidize builders (i.e. builder welfare), then they should have a plan to REPLACE that revenue stream with another source, and there is no such plan.  The builders and their Board supporters only talk about reducing impact fees without an alternative replacement of the revenues for the Schools.

One way would be to continue the recommended school impact fees, reduced to 64% of the consultant’s recommendations until another revenue source is activated to replace the impact fee revenues. 

And, before making a decision, the County Board should get a full presentation from the School District staff and Board on the way schools are financed so they understand the full picture. This should be scheduled for the Lake County Board meeting on the 28^th.    They should NOT delay or dilute the process by forwarding the issue to the County CFAC committee because information may get lost or filtered through that committee, or any summary report might be poorly written and exclude important factors.  

 

Thus, if you see any School Board members refuse to approve impact fees, even at a discount, then you know they are avoiding their Board responsibility to ensure continued school funding in order to make a political decision.  This decision should be made whether you think the schools are efficient or not – their revenues are decreasing from many sources, and impact fees should not be dropped without a replacement revenue source. 

vj

Vance Jochim

Lake County Fiscal Rangers

Chief Fiscal Watchdog

Volunteers Searching for Ways to Improve Local Government Fiscal Management, Efficiency & Effectiveness

PO Box 1042

Tavares, FL 32778

Mobile:  352-638-3578

FiscalRangers@comcast.net

www.FiscalRangers.com   

TWITTER:  @FiscalRangers 

Fiscal Ranger's page on Facebook

CLICK HERE to see recommended internet links related to Local Lake County government fiscal issues.

Florida Online Virtual Schools Outscore AP Tests from Regular Schools & Cost $2159 Less

Tavares, FL - JN. 23, 2012-  SunshineStateNews.com reports that Florida's virtual online school for K-12 students is getting higher scores on AP (Advanced Placement) tests than regular schools, AND it costs $2159 less than regular schools to do so.

Read and understand...  competition once again hits the union dominated teacher ranks, and shows how well routine tasks can be implemented.   We do know that Florida recently mandated that online classes be given also by local school districts, which means the unions may dominate that new skills area and be a reason for increased costs.

However, we do understand that the online courses may be designed to enable passing tests, but perhaps not on how to think. 

In other words, will we just be getting robots that are good at test taking?   Are online learning software programs also available to teach critical thinking and other non-rote learning skills?  I think so, but that is another story.

http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/spending-2159-less-student-online-school-outscores-florida-campuses-ap-exams?utm_source=constantcontact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=012312  

If you like this, and want to keep up with news on Lake County, FL local government issues, join our Facebook page at:  https://www.facebook.com/FiscalRangers   

vj

Rick Riker on the DROP of Lake County School District High Schools Rank to a "C"

Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012

From Guest Writer Rick Riker, who attends most of the Board meetings and workshops of the Lake County School District

    On January 4th 2012 the Florida Department of Education unveiled their 2010-2011 High School grades.  The grades are based 50% on  FCAT and 50% on other components, ie. Graduation Rates and College Readiness.  The letter grades the schools receive are much like the grades we all received in school, a C = Adequate or Average and an A or B = Better than average, of course we all know what D & F represent. 

(Editor's Note:  Here are the new and prior High School Ratings taken from the official press release from the Lake County School District (link is at bottom of this article):)

"The 2010-2011 grades for each high school are (and grades for the previous four school years):

·         East Ridge High School “B”  

      (2009-10: “C”; 2008-09: “C”; 2007-08: “B”; 2006-07: “D”)

·         Eustis High School “B”

      (2009-10: “B”; 2008-09: “D”; 2007-08: “C”; 2006-07: “D”)

·         Leesburg High School “C”

      (2009-10: “C”; 2008-09: “D”; 2007-08: “D”; 2006-07: “D”)

·         Mount Dora High School “D”

      (2009-10: “B”; 2008-09: “C”; 2007-08: “B”; 2006-07: “C”)

·         South Lake High School “B”

      (2009-10: “C”; 2008-09: “D”; 2007-08: “D”; 2006-07: “D”)

·         Tavares High School “B”

      (2009-10: “A”; 2008-09: “B”; 2007-08: “B”; 2006-07: “B”)

·         Umatilla High School “C”
       (2009-10: “B”; 2008-09: “D”; 2007-08: “B”; 2006-07: “C”)

As a county, Lake received an overall grade of “C”.  How did this grade stack up against the other 67 public school districts in Florida?  State wide 21% of the schools scored C and below, Lake's score was 43%  C and below or 22% worse than the state average. C or Average is not what anyone wants to achieve or what we want from our schools.  How did the Lake schools do when compared state wide to above average scores, A & B?  Of the 67 public school districts we find that 50 of those school districts have A & B percentages higher than Lake leaving only 16 doing worse in the above average category. 

   The County School Officials have put a positive spin on the grade with statements like,    “Overall we're encouraged by the grades”, this is to be expected and having a positive attitude is encouraging, lets hope this attitude doesn't take the place of conceding the fact that the statistics indicate that the Lake County School District has a lot of work to do to achieve an acceptable grade which taxpayers are paying them to achieve.

    At the first Lake County School District Board workshop of the new year many topics were covered but the meeting ended with one Board member passing out another pro uniform paper supporting the unfounded concept that uniforms would have a major positive impact on students deportment and learning. Last year this topic took up a great deal of time, time the school board could have been using to deal with legitimate reasons for and ways to raise our schools grades.  This issue was soundly defeated by both the parents and the school board and would only be an unnecessary distraction from the real issues. 

(Scroll down to see links to related news articles. - Ed )

Rick Riker

Editor's Note:  It will be interesting to see what the existing Board members do about these ranking drops, and how their campaign opponents use this information against them. My opinion is that there are some good schools and good teachers in Lake County, but residents just have to research and find them.  We will see if the Superintendant takes any action about changing leadership within the School leadership system. There are some great principals, but maybe some others have been retained too long and do not have the skills to keep up with the ever changing and complex curriculum and testing requirements that require more analytical minds.  The School administrators also might need to find a more assertive way to cope with union restrictions and still edge out lower performing teachers who also cannot keep up with the more complex metrics used to measure school scores.  Teaching isn't easy anymore, and that is part of the problem as higher level teaching and administrative skills are needed. 

If I were on the Board, I would be asking to see a list of adminstrators and teachers in the lower ranked schools and grill the Superintendent on how they compare to the successful ones, what has been done, and specify that the lowest 10% be re-assigned, demoted or let go.  I know the staff has been doing some benchmarking and tracking what teacher actions result in better grades.  My recommendation to let low performers go is harsh, yes, but in this changing world, the old skills might not be working and the District needs to rotate staff until they find people at ALL levels with the proper skills to cope with the newer requirements.  There are always excuses for poor performance, but you want people who FIND A WAY to work within new requirements and perform, even if that means coaching parents also.  Stop hiring extra coaches and consultants, and find staff and teachers who can self learn and do what is needed on their own.  Sales departments do that all the time.  They provide basic skills and then let them demonstrate their sales ability.  They then let the lower 10% go every year (or sooner) because the metrics for the corporation will improve vs holding on to poor salespeople HOPING they might improve.   The same disciplined approach is needed for the teaching profession to ensure disciplined instructors are hired to improve School ratings vs those who constantly fight what is needed for improvement.

The question is, are the schools run to meet teacher and union interests to protect the lowest common denominator or seniority levels, or to hire people who provide higher performance methods of teaching to improve rankings regardless of seniority or education levels.

One solution is perhaps creating competition by staffing one school just with teachers who worked in industry first, then went through Lake Sumter Community College's "Education Preparation Institute" to become teachers after having worked in the "real world".   It would be interesting to see if they have better coping, discipline and teaching skills to meet the current, complex teaching environment. 

Vance Jochim

References & Articles Researched and Added by FiscalRangers.com :

Orlando Sentinel Jan. 4th Article on Most Recent FCAT Scores for High Schools

"Lake and Volusia county schools didn't shine as much. Lake had one D, Mount Dora High — and Volusia County had two, Atlantic and Pine Ridge high schools, and no A-rated campuses." 

Here is the Press Release from Lake County Schools Explaining the above drop

    “Overall, we’re encouraged with the grades,” said Dr. Susan Moxley, Superintendent of Lake County Schools. “We’re exhibiting an overall trend of academic improvement. These results validate the strategies we have in place, in addition to the hard work of our teachers and principals, to adapt to the changing landscape of more rigorous standards and assessments. We’ll continue to evaluate and analyze these grades so we can build strategies toward improvement.”

Jan. 4th Press Release from Florida Dept of Education on new FCAT Ratings for High Schools

Jan. 4th Press Packet from FLDOE with Graphs and shows worksheet with line for each County, including Lake County's 7 High schools

Florida Education Ranking drops from 5th (B-)  to 11th Place (C+) in National Education ratings

    FLDOE Press Release Explaining their version of the above Ranking

Florida Gov. Scott Wants $1-billion more for 2012/2013 School Budgets

Orlando Sentinel Database of latest 2011 Florida School FCAT scores

 

 

New Federal Report Indicates Teacher Pay is DOUBLE the pay for private sector

Tavares, FL - Dec. 23, 2011 -  A Sunshine State News article describes a new Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics report indicating that nationally, teachers pay, including benefits, is significantly more than the private sector or other government employees. The first half of this article discussed national figures, then they discuss Florida, where we do know teachers are less paid because this is a right to work state, but then so are all employees in Florida. Read and understand - much blame is put on the unions for focusing on rewards for seniority vs competence.

"Two surprising new reports show that hourly pay and benefits for public-school teachers are higher than the compensation received by other government employees or similarly qualified private-sector workers."

Meanshile, in Lake County, the teacher and SEIU unions are already in negotiations to lock in wage or benefit increases before the School District Board finds out how little money they have for next year.

Watch and see the Lake County Board approve either wage or benefit increases in a closed meeting early next year.  Then they will cry that they don't have money to pay for teaching the kids and other services.

It is my belief that this insider wage process needs to be transparent, based upon sound & objective data, and fully public.

School Board members need to discuss and make wage and benefit decisions in PUBLIC AND provide full cost estimates (not partial year) on an annual basis for all changes.

They also need to have a sound, objective salary and benefit comparison analysis comparing existing, planned teacher wages and benefits to other government agency employees AND also comparing them to private sector employees similar to the BLS analysis. 

I

Some Lake County School District Board members and educators might resent these recommendations, but until objective decision data is developed and shown publicly, AND the Board makes wage and benefit decisions in a public forum with detailed minutes and available audio recordings,  I will continue to assume they are overpaid and publicize any study saying so.  My mother was a teacher and I like and support them, but the methods for providing wages and benefits needs sound, transparent analysis and Board member decisions need to be made in public.  Lack of transparency causes low credibility.

vj

More info on teacher pay vs private sector:

If you want more evidence of how unions distort teacher pay and effectiveness, WATCH this EXCELLENT, eye opening FREE documentary "The Cartel" about teacher's unions in New Jersey (yes, I know, it is not a right to work state, but the issues related to unions are still applicable).  You can watch it FREE on Hulu.com HERE.

Or, you can read this Heritage Foundation report "Assessing the Compensation of Public School Teachers", which describes several added factors indicating teachers are overpaid, and concludes:

"We conclude that public-school-teacher salaries are comparable to those paid to similarly skilled private-sector workers, but that more generous fringe benefits for public-school teachers, including greater job security, make total compensation 52 percent greater than fair market levels, equivalent to more than $120 billion overcharged to taxpayers each year."

A Tea party Newsletter from Ohio discussed excessive teacher wages (again, not a right to work state), and provided this bar graph comparing different sector pay levels, including government employee unions vs private sector.  OEA is the Ohio Education Association - notice how high they are compared to everyone else. 

- More below - scroll down -

 

 

 

 

 

And, you can read this recent BLS report citing average total employment costs for the private sector and how much lower it was than for state and government workers:

"Total employer compensation costs for private industry workers averaged
$28.24 per hour worked in September 2011."

"State and local government employers spent an average of $40.76 per hour worked for employee compensation in September 2011. Wages and salaries averaged $26.57 per hour and 65.2 percent of compensation costs, while benefits averaged $14.19 per hour worked and accounted for the remaining 34.8 percent"

 

PS;  Hey, at least I am not citing THIS Michigan Study showing much higher teacher wages compared to average per capital income.  (They are a union dominated state and not a right to work state).

 

Jim Krakowski Comments on Dec. 12 Lake County, FL School Board Meeting

Tavares, FL - Dec. 15, 2011

Guest Commentary:  Jim Krakowski is a member of the South Lake County 912/Tea Party and he attends many meetings of the Lake County School District Board in Tavares.  He has significant business experience, and below is his report of the Dec. 12 meeting, with comments from three Board members.

You can usually find the meeting agenda and attachments supporting the agenda items at the School District website HERE.   Go to the "Board Docs" menu and select the "public" option, then find the meeting date to open the agenda. 

VJ

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My comments / observation regarding December 12, 2011 School Board Meeting.

(Jim Krakowski 12/14/11)

Long Range Planning

Monday’s board meeting was filled with recommendations, options, wish lists, etc.  The Director of Growth Planning presented the findings from the Northeast Lake Long Range Planning Committee along with the committee’s recommendations.  They focused on which older schools needed to be repaired, modernized and/or expanded for potential future growth.  These older schools had suffered from lack of funding due to the need to build new schools in faster growing areas of the county (specifically south lake).  As part of the committees recommendations “… Eustis Elementary and Umatilla Middle be expanded slightly upon reconstruction, to the extent that Eustis Elementary would have a capacity of around 750 students, and Umatilla Middle would be able to house 1000 students.” 

Now that the board has recommendations from South Lake and Northeast Lake planning committees, the next step in the process is to appoint a similar committee for Northwest Lake.  Once done all of the recommendations will be compiled, priorities established, funding or the lack thereof discussed and a plan developed to address these short-term and long-term needs.

What’s missing? 

• Demographics … just a few short months ago the board was presented with a 3 – 5 year projection on student population and tax revenues.  Lest we forget, the student population was expected to be flat (no growth), and the tax revenues were expected to continue to decline.  I don’t think that anything has changed to alter these demographics.  As a matter of fact one of the funding sources has been eliminated by the county commissioners … Impact Fees.  It was a little disappointing that demographics was not part of the discussion, especially since this was an element Ms Fischer asked the staff to address when discussing the Grassy Lake addition a few months ago.  But then again, most of the schools mentioned by this committee are in Ms. Fischer’s district.

• Revenues … With the decrease in tax revenues (both local and state) and an increase in state and federal mandates (e.g. Race to the Top), new funding resources need to be addressed as part of the Long Range Plan.

It would appear that both demographics and new funding sources should also be a part of the long rang planning process. 

Attendance Boundaries

The Director of Growth Planning then presented the Advisory Boundary Committee’s recommendations regarding South Lake elementary schools … especially Grassy Lake.  The recommendations were to construct the addition that was voted down by the board less than 12 months ago (some things never die).  The second option was to revise the attendance boundaries and have Minneola Charter as an option for families that do not wish to send their children to Astatula Elementary.

Debbie Stivender (the then chairperson) and Rosanne Brandeburg (the current chairperson) both indicated they had previously recommended the $2.1 million addition to Grassy Lake even though there were and still are less expensive options.  But since the addition was voted down, and since the district will be spending several hundreds of thousands of dollars on specialized portables, the second option would most likely be the only viable alternative.  A new twist would be that existing students at Grassy Lake and siblings would be grandfathered in to stay at Grassy Lake if they so choose.

Tod Howard stated that, if what he had recommended several months ago to revise the school boundaries, were done, the board would have resolved this problem.  In my opinion Mr. Howard was and still is correct.  Instead of solving the problem long-term, several on the board took a short-term, easier approach vs. addressing long-term solutions.  In effect they “kicked the issue down the road” … now it needs to be addressed.  Keep in mind that Grassy Lake, Astatula and Minneola Charter are all A rated schools.

Transportation Routing System 

The district is currently transporting over 22,000 students per day for a daily mileage of over 24,000 miles.  The current routing is being done by hand and the recommendation is to spend ~$150,000 for a new software program that would enhance and allow the routing to be compiled more efficiently.  The estimated annual cost to maintain the system would be ~$25,000.  It is estimated that the saving would be multiple of the costs.  The funds are already available, and no new requests for additional funding would be required.

What’s missing? 

• Although I agree that a routing system as large as this school district should be more efficient, and I am sure the software has the potential of improving efficiencies, but where is the cost analysis?  I am not a believer in estimated savings starting with words like “should” save or it is “expected” or “anticipated” to save …  There needs to be an analysis that specifically identifies what assumptions were made to arrive at the estimated cost savings.

• Hats off to the managers who “squirrels away” funds in the accounts under their control for projects such as these.  It does make me wonder, what other accounts are over funded?

• Although separate from the routing system, is the board addressing how they are going to replace the busses used to transport 22,000 students per day or is the district going to be forced to borrow / spend funds on an “emergency” bases … similar to the forced borrowing for South Lake HS lights and HVAC units?

Finally … I am sure the board members and superintendent are also believers in long-range planning.  However, what they should not forget or discard is the information previously compiled (e.g. demographics) when making decisions.  I am also a believer in Cost Analysis and not relying on “estimated” costs savings that are not based on valid, identifiable data and assumptions.

Comments from the Board:

• Tod Howard – “Demographics will be brought in once we actually have all the facility data.  The demographics will change between now and then.  I was thinking about the GLE situation.  I understand the community advocating for their schools but LCSB has spent $100,000,000 in the past 5 years on their community.  How much is enough?  When do the schools with much greater needs become a priority?”

• Jim Miller – “You make good observations and ask very good questions.  Many of them I am also asking.  We think a lot alike.”

• Rosanne Bradenburg - I wanted to share with you that the original estimate to build the 10 classroom addition for Grassy Lake and Sawgrass Bay Elementary was $2.1 million however the cost to build the addition to Sawgrass Bay Elementary ended up at $1.4 million which is the same cost that it would have been at Grassy Lake. The $2.1 million estimate was also down from $4 million each that it would have cost if they had been added prior to my joining the board. The cost to put in the five portables at Grassy Lake was $530,000.

My response –

Thank you Rosanne

Conclusion:

I guess it is a good thing that GLE wasn't approved when the cost was over $4 million.  If I had fully understood that the cost of the portables was going to be $530,000, I would have pushed harder for the other option ... boundary changes (Minneola Charter and Austalutla) ... the option 2 presented by the committee and the one that appears to have the support of the majority of the board members.

Submitted by Jim Krakowski (his REAL name)

Jim Krakowski

james krakowski [jakmak@comcast.net]