don’t need no stinkin’ million bucks
You are the owner of a business. A consultant comes to you and says he can help you to increase your profit by $40 MILLION, and it will only cost you $150,000. Of course, you are skeptical, so you check the last job this guy has done, and find that this consultant might have been exaggerating a bit.
The last time this consultant worked a similar deal, he made the same promises. He actually charged the $150,000, but the true cost was double or triple that, due to lost production from employees assisting the consultant. Furthermore, that entity’s profit only increased by about $2.5 million.
What a scam!! We might lose a half million dollars doing this, and realize an increase of only $2 million.
But wait. Isn’t that still a net increase of $1.5 million?
Florida TaxWatch wants to audit Hillsborough County’s finances, and promises to find ways to save the county some money. The $150,000 fee will even be paid by anonymous private donors.
Hillsborough County Administrator Pat Bean says it’s not worth it. County Commissioner Rose Ferlita wants nothing to do with it. Commissioner Brian Blair made the suggestion, and the five other commissioners agreed to it, making Ferlita the only no vote.
Dear Ms Ferlita, This is a no-brainer. It’s possible that the audit will amount to nothing, and we will have wasted some county employees’ time. But it’s more likely that they will find at least a few ways to cut expenses in the budget, and perhaps keep us from laying off employees. If you are worried about your favorite programs getting cut, you will still be deciding which recommendations are actually implemented.
Dear Ms Bean, How is it that you are always on the wrong side of things?
Link: Florida TaxWatch
Tags: government, hcbocc, Hillsborough County, tax waste, taxwatch
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January 7th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Commissioner Ferlita’s primary concern is the anonymous, private backing of the audit — and rightly so. The last time Florida TaxWatch audited the county, many questioned the objectivity of the results since the audit was paid for by concrete magnate Ralph Hughes, known for his developer-centric agenda.
Who’s paying this time? And why?
Are developers hiring the auditors to conclude that we should cut the Planning Commission’s budget? Is Stephen Dibbs trying to prove — again — that we should eliminate the EPC wetlands division because of his claim that it is “duplicative” and an “inefficient use of tax dollars”?
Until we know who’s paying $150,000 for this audit, and why, we won’t be able to fully evaluate the results. Meanwhile, we’ll be paying county staff to help the anonymous audit-backers grind their axes.
January 7th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Re Pat Bean: There’s this thing called the NIH syndrome (Not Invented Here) from which she seems to suffer. But then, that’s the instinctive reaction of most bureaucrate. Why don’t we just go ahead and then (for a change) watch the watchers to see what they do. Maybe we could even get one of our local newspapers (now that Bucs football is done)to give the exercise some coverage.
January 7th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Florida Tax Watch should audit themselves, into oblivion.
FTW are nothing more than right wing extremists.
January 7th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Double ditto’s Mariella.
January 7th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I’m all for eliminating pork and cutting taxes, but if Ralphie and his ilk are behind this, or if Pat the Puppet Bean reacts with her pre-programmed enthusiasm, you can bet there’s something nefarious and stinky behind this allegedly noble initiative. Ralph doesn’t want to save me from overpaying taxes — Ralph wants the county to act as his proxy to siphon off just a little more cash, so as to redistribute the wealth right back into his considerably-larger-than-mine bank account.
Be instantly suspicious and eternally vigilant, Hillsborough County citizens.
January 8th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Okay … if the problem is WHO is paying for this, then the county should simply fund it themselves. It really is stupid to say “we won’t look at ways to save up to $2 million, because it COULD POSSIBLY BE developer or other boogeyman helping pay for the audit.” Really, how mentally challenged can these people really be?
Pay the fee out of the general fund, and then put back the first $300K in savings to make up for it. That alone is a wise investment, even if you decide to use the rest to plant hemp and study drum circles.
Seriously, I think that there needs to be an IQ test at the top of the ballot. If you can’t score higher than a certain number (say 80), you have to turn in your pencil and you’ll get dulled crayons to color in the pretty little circles … and then you can take your ballot home with you and hang it on the fridge.
January 8th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Mariella is right. I am surprised Ms. Bean isn’t going along with the rest of the boys on this one. Maybe since Mariella exposed Ms. Bean’s recent dirty trick regarding the Planning Commission she is changing her tune.
Ferlita is the only one who consistently does the right thing for this county. Think about it……….people just don’t part with $150,000 without expecting something in return and if indeed it is a developer who wants to dismantle the Planning Commission then that would be a great investment for them. I am very suspicious that this has been cooked up in some way shape or form to benefit those that support the developer agenda.
If TAXWATCH is legit then I would expect them to tell us that 6 out of 7 ……OK 5 because I will give Sharpe the benefit of the doubt…of this BOCC are a waste of our tax dollars……let’s see
5 x $91,0000 = $455,000. There is a budget cut for you………just send it to the Planning Commission……the only agency that is not corrupted by developers but constantly gets bullied by this BOCC. Now that they have crippled the EPC, the Planning Commission appears to be next on their list and this could very well be their behind the scenes way of doing it. Good try boys.
January 9th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Chaaaalie makes a good point here. If there is a possibility to save a couple million, we need to do it. Again, if specific programs are on the chopping block, commissioners can vote each one separately.
January 13th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
But it is the way that Chaaaalie makes the point–silver tongued devil he is not. As far as being offensive, did he leave anyone out?
January 13th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Buyer Beware - The County already has an internal auditor whose salary is paid by taxpayers, so why should we pay to have TAXWATCH perform an audit that the County Auditor should be qualified to do?
Commissioner Hagan recently took it upon himself to request TAXWATCH perform an audit of the EPC Wetlands Divison - just days before the EPC Board (a.k.a. BOCC) was scheduled to vote on elemination of the Wetlands Division. It appeared that the Commissioners (gang of four plus one)had no evidence to back up their repeated claims of duplication and thought they could buy a quick fix - fortunately given only one week to perform an audit (with a weekend in between) the report provided was severely deficient. Ask yourselves, why would TAXWATCH have agreed to accept this request when it could not hope to provide a competent assessment within one week?
When questioned about the funding source - Taxwatch conveniently denied knowing the exact source. If Taxwatch cannot account for their own internal processes why should we waste our tax dollars? Seems to me Commissioner Ferlita was right on the money.
Looks like the Commishes are up to their old tricks, like Mariella said - whose behind this and why? I have a suggestion - get rid of all the committees, the studies and the Commissioners who use them to avoid making decisions and vote in some Commissioners who might actually do their job.