Vance Jochim

My fiscal watchdog blog focus is local Lake County, FL government fiscal management covering the Lake County Board & Government; the Lake County School District Board and administration; the North Lake County Hospital District; the Lake County Water Authority; various CRA's (Community Redevelopment Agencies) and some city councils like Tavares, Mt. Dora, Eustis & Clermont.

A fiscal watchdog is needed in Lake County because the two local newspapers and local Orlando papers and TV stations barely cover local government in Lake County. Because Florida has no income tax, local governments use property taxes to fund many services, thus if the elected officials increase property tax millage rates, or get more revenue from increased property valuations or growth, there is not much visibility.

I also video many local governments and political meetings which can be seen on our YouTube channel, "FiscalRangersFlorida". at https://www.youtube.com/FiscalRangersFlorida.

- The Lake County government, which has a budget of $400+million and around 1,800+ employees (including Constitutional Offices who spend over half the budget and do not provide detailed budgets or ever request performance audits). The Board's operations do NOT currently have a professional Controller. They rely on the separate County Court Clerk for accounting services, which does NOT include cost accounting, performance metrics or 5-year trend reports.

- The Lake County, Florida School District in Florida (LCSD) has 5,000 employees and is the largest employer in Lake County. They have $400+million in net assets, a budget of $700+million, including $160-million for capital outlays (school construction, etc.).

- The North Lake County Hospital District used to collect a 1 mill tax on all residential & commercial property in North Lake County, which is listed on your property tax bill. However, as of 2023 on, new, conservative Board members have cut the millage rate substantially. The District Board automatically distributes the tax funds collected to two Lake County major hospitals and several clinics to pay for indigent patient costs. Reform legislation was passed by many taxpayers in 2012 to improve accountability, and provide compliance audits. A similar South Lake Hospital District was closed awhile back due to taxpayer anger at being charged to subsidize their one large hospital.

- The Lake County Water Authority (LCWA) was merged into the Lake County Government around 2022 after Lake County legislators passed a law forcing the merger.

About the author, Vance Jochim

I am now retired and live in Lake County, FL, having moved from liberal California in 2005. I earlier spent two years in Baghdad, Iraq (2004 to 2006) helping set up an Iraqi anti-corruption agency, which also paid for my relocation from California to Lake County. I also have 18 years of corporate internal audit experience, an MBA, and held professional certifications (now inactive) in internal audit ( Certified Internal Auditor) , fraud prevention (Certified Fraud Examiner) and computer auditing ( Certified Information Systems Auditor - CISA -inactive). I have worked as a corporate audit manager or director in large organizations including ARCO (now part of BP - the oil company), Nissan Motor Corp., and a software firm and a concrete products manufacturing company with 40 plants. I also was a senior internal auditor at the County of Los Angeles for five years. My specialty was operational auditing - conducting audits to improve organization efficiency, economy and effectiveness. I have audited or directed audits of construction contracts up to $400-million, marketing incentive programs up to $600-million and treasury operations of $16-billion. You can see examples of my work at: http://webworks.typepad.com/lakecountyfiscalrangers/list-of-operational-audit-case-studies-by-vance-jochim.html

I also published a blog on Corruption in Iraq and the World until 2011, which is based upon my exposure to international anti-corruption efforts while in Iraq. It is still at: http://webworks.typepad.com/corruption_in_iraq/

This blog can be reached directly at: FiscalRangers.com.