{"id":7866,"date":"2018-05-25T20:27:28","date_gmt":"2018-05-26T03:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/?p=7866"},"modified":"2025-12-17T20:28:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T04:28:23","slug":"joe-harn-a-fiscal-conservative-or-did-we-get-suckered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/2018\/05\/25\/joe-harn-a-fiscal-conservative-or-did-we-get-suckered\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Harn – A Fiscal Conservative? Or did we get Suckered?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cris Alarcon, Part 2 of a series.\u00a0Part 1<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

A lot of Gold was taken home in Old Hangtown with a card game called three-card Monte. \u00a0It looks good, but it is a total scam. \u00a0The practiced sleight-of-hand is not visible and the game efficiently tricked people out of their hard-earned money using deception and ego. \u00a0As part two in this series I will explain how three-card monte dealers have never left, they just made their game more permanent as career politicians. \u00a0Today good conservatives are being treated to a modern-day three-card-monte dealer named\u00a0Joe Harn. \u00a0He plays our ego and deceives us with the silver tongue of a career politician.<\/p>\n

Almost two decades ago I started attending El Dorado County Taxpayers\u2019 Association Monday morning meetings. \u00a0For the first ten years, I believed that Joe was a taxpayers’ advocate, but as time passed I saw Joe\u2019s left hand when he was saying, \u201cLook in my right hand.\u201d \u00a0He told me how he saved money for us. It sounded great. \u00a0And we bought in by electing him. \u00a0But just like the Monte dealer of old, this one never seems to deliver what we expected. \u00a0Odd, Curious, but we re elect him as our conservative representative. \u00a0It sounds and looks great, but we still don’t seem to get what we expected. \u00a0Sooner or later we realize we got scammed! Joe is not a conservative, his actions betray his polished words of a career politician.<\/p>\n

One thing that Joe Harn, Mike Owen, Larry Weitzman, and I have in common is collegiate training in accounting. \u00a0Accounting gives us the ability to take a large set of numbers, and make them seem to indicate a predetermined goal, to tell many different stories with the numbers. The only thing that makes them meaningful, is a standardized set of rules. \u00a0In accounting these rules are often called “GAAP” an acronym for Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.<\/p>\n

Anyone involved in business ownership is somewhat familiar in some of those rule even if not the details. \u00a0An example is things like “Profit\/Loss” and “Cash Flow” even if it just at tax time. \u00a0As a conservative principle we want enough cash-flow to cover expected expenses, but not any more than needed as that is a non-performing asset.<\/p>\n

Now let us shift to Joe for an example. \u00a0When Joe was in a heated race four years ago he announced that the county had a “surplus” of over $54 million. [“Harn takes credit for … to move El Dorado County from a negative cash balance to a $54 million surplus.” Sacbee, Peter Hetch, May 24, 2014.] \u00a0Less than a year later he told the BOS that we were effectively broke!\u00a0[Mtn Dem, Supes begin year with budget woes, data shortcomings, January 14, 2015]<\/p>\n

How can that be? By not following the GAAP rules…<\/p>\n

Take the word “Surplus,” when Joe says the county is doing fine under his watch demonstrated by the county’s “surplus.”\u00a0(Many already know where I am headed because this is most basic stuff for anyone with a college accounting background and of course something every CPA must know to get a lic). \u00a0Surplus is “Profit” not “Cash-Flow” and Joe knows that. \u00a0As every CPA knows.<\/p>\n

Budget surplus refers to the amount by which an organization\u2019s revenue exceeds its expenses (or Revenues exceeds Liabilities). In other words, it measures how much money the organization has left over after paying all of its expenses. \u00a0This term is most commonly used to refer to government spending. \u00a0That means that as a head accountant type I can delay paying the last two months of bills at the end of the year and say, “Look how much money I have in the bank.”\u00a0It looks pretty good if you don’t think about those unpaid bills… \u00a0No, they are likely to show up as hugh cash outlays at the beginning of the next fiscal year, but that gives plenty of time before to next report – to cover the deception.<\/p>\n

It is GAAP rules that keep this from deceiving us into thinking we have money to spend, simply because there is money in the account today. \u00a0It is clear in the accepted rules of accounting that you don’t confuse profit with cash-flow. \u00a0Any accountant type knows this, even a hillbilly hack like me, let alone a CPA or a county Auditor… \u00a0So ignorance is no excuse.<\/p>\n

This is the kind of sleight-of-hand that career politicians become adept at. \u00a0Manipulating cash-flow and then using that to intentionally confuse cash-flow as “surplus” is one example of the dishonesty of Joe Harn on a macroscale, now let me drill down to the microscale level with the details of specific examples.<\/p>\n

EXAMPLE A:
\nA few years ago our state taxed billionaires extra to fund mental health service on the county level. \u00a0A huge sum was transferred to the counties and showed as revenue. \u00a0In our county it was not released to be used by Joe. \u00a0That is part of the money that is unspent (not without obligation) that he calls “surplus.”\u00a0As it was not spent, it was slated to go back to the state’s general fund — not back to the taxpayers.<\/p>\n

But the state bulked and said, no, use the money so it sits waiting to be used to help the mental health issues facing our county residents. \u00a0That is part of Joe’s “surplus.”\u00a0Sure it sits there, but it has obligations to be spent. \u00a0When and how is not known, but it is a safe bet is is not EVER going back to the taxpayers.<\/p>\n

\n

EXAMPLE B:
\nIn a case of the Pioneer Fire Department, he refused to pay some bills of the fire department from the fees. \u00a0Sounds good on its face for a conservative, but, he collected taxes from those area taxpayers specifically for those bills, then refused to pay the bills, but the money was never returned to the taxpayers that were told it was for something, nor were the taxpayers given any say in where or how those assessed taxes are to really be spent to do. \u00a0We know in the reality of government budgets is that it was swept into some shortfall that the taxpayer was never told about.<\/p>\n

I recall these facts as I see Joe claiming to be a “Taxpayers Advocate” and seeking our support as conservative voters.<\/p>\n

Seeing theses facts I cannot accept Joe’s claim of being a taxpayer’s advocate, even if he is great at talking the talk. \u00a0But even a non-accountant can see he does not walk the walk. \u00a0That he is about keeping his paychecks and bonuses, not about bringing conservative principles to our local government.<\/p>\n

Now those are good examples but I want to drive it home with our own little political pay bonus scandal.<\/p>\n

EXAMPLE C:
\nTwo things happened years ago: the county citizens voted term-limits on every elected office they could as a strong message that long-term politicians were unwelcome; the county approved a pay bonus for longevity based on the known cost of a high employee turnover rate. This is standard policy in most major American enterprises. Years after, some county Supervisors wanted their share of the longevity bonus and argued that the vote was for employees and did not differentiate types of employees, therefore it was for all employees, including elected office holders. \u00a0This is very irregular policy.<\/p>\n

Many of us local conservatives went ballistic over this self-serving reinterpretation of the approved rule. \u00a0Even the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association called it a bonus for getting re-elected. \u00a0As if there were not enough bonuses to getting reelcted, now we are giving big cash bonuses to every elected office holder. \u00a0Those bonuses are adding to the debt liability that Joe was warning us about. \u00a0Long-term debt as this is a factor of retirement pay.<\/p>\n

What he failed to do was to warn us about is this trickery. \u00a0He should have done what he prides himself on, refuse to pay the bill claiming it is an illegal payment. \u00a0Maybe needing a new election to clarify if this was for a county incentive for regular employees to stay with the county for their full career life, or if it included the same inducement to elected office holder so they would stay longer<\/p>\n

That is the kind of grandstanding Joe is famous for and many of us have seen him perform it many times.<\/p>\n

But not this time… \u00a0Maybe because this bonus was going into his pocket? \u00a0I don’t know but I know he did not sound the alarm as the Audit\/Controller that money was being misspent as bonuses that were originally justified as an incentive to be inducement county employees to stay longer as employees, while at the same time we voted in term-limits for most elected officeholders.<\/p>\n

A taxpayer’s advocate would have not only sounded the alarm, they would have suited up for battle… as many locals did. \u00a0One of the major obstacles in that battle to stop giving “reelected” bonuses to electeds, has been Joe Harn.<\/p>\n

Joe Harn is simply not the conservative he claims to be but has hoodwinked good conservatives with the finely polished soundbites of a career politician… A career politician that adds to his mandatory bonuses if he gets reelected.<\/p>\n

In 2015 Joe Harn made\u00a0$154,944<\/strong>, and another\u00a0$58,540.45<\/strong>\u00a0in “Other pay”, and wait, another\u00a0$46,071.99<\/strong>\u00a0in benefits for $259,556.44.<\/p>\n

$58,540 bonus for a small-county employee is hard to get alarmed about, if you are Joe Harn.<\/p>\n

One time I got caught up in a game of Monte in my travels. \u00a0I was amazed at the seamless\u00a0manner I was being scammed. \u00a0So now I am cautious of the invisible sleight-of-hand, just like I am cautious of the glib politician that tells me everything I want to hear…<\/p>\n

\n

End of Part 2.<\/p>\n

Part 3, \u201cFailure to conform to modern personnel practices\u201d next week.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cris Alarcon, Part 2 of a series.\u00a0Part 1] A lot of Gold was taken home in Old Hangtown<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","darknews-slider-full":"","darknews-featured":"","darknews-medium":"","darknews-medium-square":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"News MoLo","author_link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/author\/admin\/"},"category_info":"News<\/a>","tag_info":"News","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7866"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7867,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7866\/revisions\/7867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}