HOW THE OC BOARD OF SUPERVISORS SPENDS YOUR MONEY

The Orange County Board of Supervisors has voted to spend the following amounts in the new $5.56 Billion Budget:

$54,463 for a company to test fire alarms at Juvenile Hall once during the year.

$45 an hour through 2009 for one man to perform "Rodent Control Services" at the county's flood-control channels.

$165,655 bonus to ACS State & Local Solutions (formerly Lockheed Martin) for the company's work on a lucrative $22,087,278 information technology contract.

$22.6 million for 3 Anaheim parcels the assessor's office says are worth less than $9.5 million.

$100,000 to the private Orange County Business Council which lobbies for the Irvine Co. and other local corporate giants so that it can produce a "Workforce Investment" Study.

$99,000 bonus to a Newport Beach consultant (Lisa Burke) who was already getting $100,000 to write a "Community Indicators Report" that the Business Council will use to track "key indicators of economic, social and environmental well-being in an effort to assess the overall quality of life in Orange County."

$240,000 to local Republican Party boss Scott Baugh, a self-styled fiscal conservative for lobbying in Sacremento.

$60,000 a year until 2010 for a company to shred documents at just one county department: Social Services Agency

$136,000 to build a canopy at the entrance to a county building.

$135,000 for a company to perform art exhibhition packing services at John Wayne Airport.

$268,000 for a company to test and (if necessary) repair the fire alarm system at Theo Lacy Jail over the next 12 months.

$93,000 to a private firm that will pick up mail at post office boxes for two county departments.

$435,000 for just two IBM office laser printers - $102,000 for the machines and an astonishing $333,000 for maintenance.

$67,000 for consultant Mike Mount to determine whether the county's purchasing operations are wasteful.

--Source: The OCWeekly

Family makes 200K a year and gives most of it away

MORNING READ: How rich is rich? The Hsieh family donates most of its earnings to others.
By LORI BASHEDA- The Orange County Register



Who on earth would make $200,000, and give away all but $48,000 of it?

Who would hunker down in the hood when they can afford the heights?

Tom and Bree Hsieh. That's who.

The couple belongs to a club made up of people who donate at least half their salary to charity for at least three years straight.

It's called the 50 % League and it grew out of Bolder Giving, an organization started in 2007 by Boston suburb philanthropists Anne and Christopher Ellinger. The mission: To encourage people to publicly proclaim their stories of giving in hopes that it inspires others to give boldly.the 120 club members are millionaires, often folks who inherited giant sums of money and, feeling either burdened or guilty or unbelievably generous, decided to give most or all of it away.

Folks like John Hunting, who is quoted on the Bolder Giving website, saying this gem: "When I got a $130 million windfall in 1998, I decided to give it away quickly."

But as admirable as that is, its one thing to give away windfalls when you're still left with enough money to live comfortably (Hunting kept $10 million). It's another thing to give away so much money that you wind up wearing 99 cent thrift store ties to corporate meetings. Cheerfully, we might add.

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