Working People’s Grade: C
Friend of the Working People
Party: Republican
Occupation: Chiropractor
Business Experience: Yes
Email: howard@lake.k12.fl.us
Comments: Dr. Howard is new to the school board and he has been doing more listening than talking – that is understandable. Now, he needs to lead more than follow. He was wrong on the school impact fee issue and he was not aware where the issue had moved.
Tod Howard’d splanation of how the $10 Million budget shorfal and the bond debts all have nothing to do with each other is simply a bureaucratic splanation of total BS!
That his how the bureaucrats conived everything so that one debt doesn’t over ride the precious benefits! As too the $30 milliion cost of employee’s self employed medical benefits get someone in there to bid against Brown and Brown Insurance and that number will drop by 50%.
The reason all these benefits cost us so much money in Lake County is because so many of these sucker have got their hands in the till. Jimmy Conner still cutting insurance deals with Brown and Brown for the LCSB! As well as deals with PPI on building! Every hand in the cookie jar cost us another cookie! Cookies are expenxive to begin with! If the organized would simply starting taking bids on all government expenditures greater that $2500 on a recurring basis the taxpayers could save 25% on all expenses. Do it or the cookie Jar will soon be out of cookies and the greedy will become the needy, then what?
Good to hear:
The debt and the $10 million budget shortfall are completely separate issues.
The revenues for schools are like rivers; if you live on river A, you can only use water from river A, if you live on river B and your stream is dry, then you are out of luck because you can not have any of river A’s water even if river A is at flood stage.
The debt is paid from capital funds including the sales tax. Impact fees are a part of capital funds can only be used for new student stations(classroom seats). Unfortunately, we do not get to “suck it up” as there are concurrency mandates as well as class size reduction. We are required by the State Constitution to provide a high quality education and to do that we need to have the funding to build and repair educational facilities.
The budget shortfall comes on operating side funds. This is the side where benefits like insurance are paid. I do not have the numbers in front of me but insurance at $6000 per year for 5000 employees is $30 million. We are self funded which means medical care is essentially paid directly out of our operating funds. A wellness center only needs to decrease medical costs by 10% to pay for itself. That does not include the savings in increased efficiency or costs associated with substitutes and the like. When you look at an average overall increase of 7% per year for medical/insurance costs it is in the taxpayers best interest for us to do everything possible to decrease those costs. Over the long term, it is wise to promote a healthier lifestyle for our employees as well as our students, this is a first step.
There are many things being done to decrease costs. Expenditures are now questioned as to why do we need it, how will it help efficiency or education and how will you track the results. We are working with other local governments to decrease overall costs to the taxpayer but provide better service along with ways to spur economic development through education. The transparency of the LCSB decisions is unprecedented. The taxpayer can now see all the supporting documentation the board does, they can access the budget and they can access many of the information presentations the board sees.
Good governance is about compromise and, I believe, you have 5 LCSB board members who disagree on many items but, are working hard to find compromise while meeting the needs of taxpayers, students and staff. This is done within the confines of numerous State and Federal mandates which many times tie our hands on decisions.
On a separate note, there was no wrong side of the impact fee decision, we all voted to suspend impact fees. LCSB unanimously decided, in the name of open and transparent governance, to have a public meeting to discuss the new recommendations of the impact fee study and decide how best to provide for their implementation at some point down the road. During that initial meeting it was even discussed, and we all agreed, that 6 months suspension may not be adequate to gain the desired result but the responsible course of action was to make a data driven decision. It was nothing more than open and honest government yet we get decried for doing what we were elected to do.
You can not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Education is an important part of economic development. If you think for a minute that we are going to attract first rate companies to Lake County while providing a second rate education you are sadly mistaken. For economic growth to proceed, we have to strike a balance between first rate education and reasonable taxes. It may not be pretty, but we are getting there.
Tod Howard
Glad that fiscal stranger has checked in with all his California brillience. We have already spent $560 Million to build schools to keep the kids out of portables! Not our fault if the ignorant built them in the wrong geography. It’s out fault for hiring the suckers that overseen it! How far will the $1.7 Million saved on Grassy Lake go on paying the interest on these bonds?
And the current budget is in the hole $10 Million for what reason? Over paying teachers and feeding hungry kids that only get one meal a day at school! Paying the light and gas bills and other administrative cost? NO! The LCSB is under water on their debt service! Like they borrowed too much money and paid too much money for all these schools they built by the lowest bidders! NOT!
And I really like that “the County Board waived their impact fees costing them $4.7-million in revenues” statement! I don’t know how you folks that know everything done it in California but, here in Florida we don’t miss anything we haven’t got yet! So that $4.7 Million will just require them to suck up and not spend what they don’t have! They can start by stopping the recent $3 Million scam on free medical services with already over covered employee’s
Naturally they are not willing to give up anything! Remember all the decision makers are also receivers of all these luzuries and benefits. So. since they can’t cut the massive debt payments they have accumulated, they want to cut the cost of services! Someday soon they will be receiving students one day a week only and writing checks and paying bond debt interest the other four!
Welcome to Lake County! The home of the best politicians money can buy!
Don’t forget that Tod was the spearhead on getting staff and other Board members to look at alternatives to spending $2-million on the Grassy Lake Elementary expansion. Because of his persistence, then Kyleen Fischer’s demands for other alternatives to the construction proposal, they went from rezoning other kids to buying portables to increase space at a MUCH lower cost. So, Howard saved the taxpayers at least $1.7-million or more. And, when the current budget is $10-million in the hole, and the County Board waived their impact fees costing them $4.7-million in revenues, and there will be another $8-million shortfall next year, having that money helps.
Tod Howard ran a good campaign. There were four candidates running and he won. Now what? I don’t see any real actions on Howard’s part. Likewise I don’t see any reactions or grades from the editors of this journal.
Is Howard merely going to occupy a seat on the school board? Is he simply going to take the taxpayers hard-earned money and put it to work in his own bank account? Or sometime in the future are we going to witness some work, some action, being done by Tod Howard?