Lakeland Community College…their fall from grace with our property taxes

By Brian Massie, A Watchman on the Wall

In light of the recent teacher layoffs at Lakeland Community College, we have been asked to provide financial information about Lakeland Community College. We sent a records request, and got the following information for our readers.

  1. Morris Beverage’s current employment contract:

2. Current interim balance sheet for Lakeland Community College:

We had a question about some missing information on the interim balance sheet. Here is the correspondence:

LFC Statement to their attorney: In our opinion, the interim statement provided does not reflect the accurate financial position of the Lakeland Community College since it does not reflect all of the liabilities. [missing $70+ million]

Lakeland’s response:

Here is the explanation I [Michael Fisher, attorney] received:

It should be noted that many government organizations in Ohio do not recognize nor report the State of Ohio’s retirement systems’ pension obligations on an interim basis.  With the ongoing impact of market value changes of assets held by the State’s retirement systems, governmental units within the State only receive annual updates on their allocation of State pension systems’ asset and liability changes.  Moreover, generally accepted accounting principles only requires its inclusion for a government’s year-end published statements, versus interim reporting.

Also note that Moody’s Investor Service for Ohio’s public higher education institutions, and the State in its fiscal watch scores for Ohio’s public higher education institutions, are aware and understand that Ohio’s public higher education institutions need to  annually recognize the impact from the State controlled pension systems, and its annual impacts to each institution’s annual GAAP prepared financial statements; but it is removed and not reflected in an individual institutions’ ratings or scores since these are from State controlled plans.

The FY23 balance sheet is not final until reviewed by Plante Moran auditors and submitted to the state.

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3. Annual compensation of senior administration:

…the following are the salaries for college administrators:

$152,124 Chief Communications Officer, VP Community and College Relations

$118,500 VP & General Counsel

$195,000 Executive VP & Provost

$123,000 Treasurer, Interim VP & CFO

$166,801 Executive Director & VP Institutional Advancement

$164,801 Sr. Director

The current compensation for Amy Sabath. $96,644 Executive Director for Lakeland Institute & Director for Government Relations

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LFC Comments: Here is the 2022 – 2023 Schedule A from the Lake County Auditor’s office that details all of the outside millage levies (voted on by the taxpayers) for Lakeland Community College.

Here is the proof that Lake County taxpayers are providing $19,785,360 (at 94% estimated collection rate) in annual revenue.

And what have the administrators done with the taxpayers’ money? About as well as this driver handled his vehicle!

Lest we forget, what is the CORNERSTONE OF LAKELAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE?

Just sit back and enjoy this Lakeland teacher extolling the virtues of their CORNERSTONE of teaching – Diversity, Inclusion and Equity! (D.I.E.)…the communist Karl Marx would be so proud!

We should add that it appears $19 million does not buy us too much in today’s world.

When we consider that enrollment is less than 50% of the “good old days” when this administration took over, we think that the Lake County taxpayers have been bamboozled, and abused.

Our message to Lakeland’s Executive Director and their Woke teachers:

GO WOKE AND YOU WILL GO BROKE!

Our message to the Lakeland Board of Trustees – It is way past time for new leadership and direction.

Our message to the Lake County Commissioner John Hamercheck, State Senator Jerry Cirino and State Representative Jamie Callender, who supported the last property tax levy, and to the existing Commissioners who appointed three Trustees, you all shoulder some of the blame also. Part of your job is to protect the financial interests of the Lake County citizens. When you see mismanagement, your duty is to speak up on behalf of the citizens, and not remain silent. All we saw was the Commissioners trying to pay for a “Workforce Development Manager” at Lakeland from the County’s General Fund. It was a political move, in support of Amy Sabath (R), and redundant to what was already being done in the County.

Our message to Lake County taxpayers:

You are being taxed out of your homes that you have worked all your lives to achieve!

It is immoral for any tax that is unpaid will leave you homeless!

No one in Lake County is providing the necessary checks and balances to guard against excessive taxation, and malfeasance in office.

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Categories: Lake County - General, Lake County Politics, Lakeland Community College

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