Supervisor Janet Nguyen thinks she knows more about finance than Supervisor John Moorlach
Which Orange County Supervisor do YOU trust the most on matters of finance? How about Supervisor John Moorlach? He can be a bit of a nutter on social issues, but on financial issues he will always be the guy who predicted the Orange County bankruptcy.
So if Supervisor Moorlach thinks it is okay for the County of Orange to borrow from a landfill account in order to pay for some much-needed information technology improvements, I am inclined to agree.
“If we borrow from ourselves, we’re the best credit we know,” Moorlach said. “We’re not doing this because we’re draining down cash, we’re doing this as a financing opportunity so we don’t have to pay Wall Street,” according to the O.C. Register.
However, Supervisor Janet Nguyen is having a cow over this move by the County, insisting that the County needs a written policy on when money should be transferred from one County account to another. Is it just me or is this why we have Supervisors, so they can vote on such matters? Must everything be specified?
And who is Nguyen to demand this? May I remind our readers that she voted against restaurant health rating letter grades without informing the voters that her husband and her Chief of Staff co-own a restaurant that has received over forty County health violations!
And Nguyen forgot to tell us that she took thousands of dollars in campaign donations from other restaurants and food establishments that were cited for health code violations.
Now Nguyen wants us to believe she is some kind of government watchdog? Ha! I don’t think so.
Nguyen has a B.A. in politica science, from U.C.I. How about Moorlach?
Prior to serving as Orange County Treasurer-Tax Collector, Moorlach was Vice President of Balser, Horowitz, Frank & Wakeling, an Accountancy Corporation, and was the administrative partner of its Costa Mesa office.
Moorlach graduated from California State University in Long Beach in 1977 and passed the C.P.A. exam in 1978. He completed his studies for the Certified Financial Planner designation in 1987. He earned a Certificate in Public Finance from the University of Delaware, Division of Continuing Education in 1995, the Certificate of Achievement in Public Plan Policy (CAPPP) in Employee Pensions in 1999 and the Trustees Masters Program in 2003 through the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, and the New Supervisors Training Institute in 2007 from California State University in Sacramento in cooperation with their Center for California Studies.
Pipe down Supervisor Nguyen. You have ZERO moral authority and much less experience and education than Moorlach. Nguyen is barely qualified to serve as Moorlach’s secretary!
this Nguyen girl is an airhead-her suggestion is a waste of everyone’s time.
She has gained no respect as someone who even has 1/2 a brain.
She is owed the same respect that all humans deserve – and that’s about it!
Please- what is her intellectual ability?
WHAT!
A written policy on when funds can be transferred from one account to another!!!
Here we go– how on earth did she get there— enough money to hire the right PR firm–from San Fran, I believe–was it $250,000- correct me if I’m wrong??
Now she is unfit to lead, and a misfit among the typical rational individual within normal range when it comes to common sense/management 101!
How can you manage any org. much less an entire county if budget admin. were that restrictive. In order to manage effectively and implement any Strategic Plan, administrators need the flexibility to be able to continuously audit spending while justifying any and all budgetary amendments/moves. That is why every move must be justified and that is why you have internal audits and always a second and third set of eyes looking at stuff.
How sane is this lady’s notion of that which is fiscally sound in opposed to what’s not??!!! How realistic can this lady’s opinion be when she probably is enjoying an open credit-line with this Lee’s Sandwich Franchise deal—hey I’ve heard–could be hear say??? Don’t know— isn’t this franchise more expensive to buy into than Starbucks ever was in its glory days!!!!????? LOL
No offense to Lee’s Sandwiches
that place is soooooo awesome!!
The tuna croissant sandwich
YUMMY!!!!
I’m not so sure about this, Art. I am generally against this type of cross-fund borrowing. The people who pay Sanitation District fees (through their municipalities)don’t do it figuring the funds will be used as a bank for other government agencies. In fact, if they have excess funds maybe some of that should be returned.
Complication in public finance to the point where the public loses comprehension of what’s going on is not a good thing, and is one of the reasons the State is so screwed up.
David,
Me too – however the Register article clearly stated that this was a rare transaction – and that the County could not fund the IT purchase with bonds or borrowing.
The way I see it, Janet is grandstanding. She dislikes Moorlach, but really she is the one who screwed him when she endorsed the nutcase Dave Shawver over him.
One of our readers nailed it – the County needs flexibility. And, at the end of the day, do we trust Janet more than we trust Moorlach? As I noted in my post, she is barely qualified to be a Supervisor. She cannot carry Moorlach’s water!
This borrowing worries me a little because after the bankruptcy of 1994 the County set up a Committee of insiders and outsiders to review any proposed borrowing and if that Committee did not approve it then the Supervisors would not either. I wonder if that Committee is being circumvented in this case, and if so that worries me. Bottom line is this is debt apparently being incurred by the County General Fund and should be reflected as such on the County’s financial statements in the spirit of full disclosure. Bond rating agencies should be aware of this new debt. While it is internal to the Supervisors perhaps, it is not interal with regard to individual fund integrity. This would seem to place the Supervisors on a slippery slope – wonder how people would feel if such borrowing were done to help fill the void of the County’s unfunded pension liability, for instance.
*Hey, anyone calling for transparency in government must be irrational twit!
Let’s transfer money from the Highway Fund into the Communications Fund…into the School Board Junket Fund…into a Travel Agent’s back pocket and then invest that money in the re-election campaigns of people approved by Joan Irvine Smith. Sounds like nothing is going wrong here….just close your eyes..and hope no one figures out what really is going on.
Janet…you are so naive!!! Don’t you know how politics works? Accountability? Hmmm….we have heard of that!