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ORLANDO, Fla. — The Orange County Comptroller’s Office released a report Monday examining the financial records of the Supervisor of Elections Office.
This comes just a week after Comptroller Phil Diamond publicly clashed with elections supervisor Glen Gilzean.
Diamond said the 12-page report was sparked by an informant coming forward back in November who said they had concerns with how money was being handled at the elections office, specifically alleged improper and excessive spending.
In his eight years in the position, Diamond said he’s never seen anything quite like this.
“This is a situation where this was much worse than we thought,” said Diamond.
He said it took several weeks to compile the report.
Diamond says the elections office spent about $9.8 million, or about 51% of the coming year’s annual budget in the last two months, which he claims is against Florida law.
“One of the things we discovered was just over the past weekend, from Friday to Sunday, he (Gilzean) had written about 225 checks and spent about $4.3 million just over the weekend," Diamond said. "And that’s an incredible amount of money."
Diamond said that besides spending more than allowed, the Supervisor of Elections Office allegedly violated Florida statute by paying more than $1.1 million to the nonprofit Central Florida Foundation.
Diamond also said Gilzean did not follow generally accepted accounting principles, saying he wrote checks totaling more than the checking account balance.
“You can’t write checks more than what you have in your account,” said Diamond. “It’s wrong.”
Orange County commissioners decided to stop funding to the Supervisor of Elections Office earlier this month. When asked about his office’s spending last week, Gilzean said several bills had to be paid after the election, and raised concerns about paying employees.
Gilzean’s office responded to Monday’s report with a statement that read, in part:
“The comptroller broke the law by withholding payroll funds from the Orange County Supervisor of Elections. The court found that the supervisor had a clear legal right to the funds, and the comptroller had an indisputable duty to disburse them.”
Diamond said he feels differently.
“I disagree with the statement in its entirety," he said. "And I think this is something that the County Commission is gonna discuss tomorrow."
Diamond said he has recommendations that he will bring to the board Tuesday afternoon in the hopes of keeping similar spending from happening again.
As for the 51% of the budget that has already been spent, he said that will certainly make things more difficult for the new Supervisor of Elections, who is set to take over in three weeks.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings also responded in the wake of the report, saying that his concerns were confirmed. He sent Spectrum News a statement that read, in part:
“Comptroller Diamond’s investigation makes it clear that Mr. Gilzean did not follow the law, nor did he follow the best practices. As a result, he has put the board of county commissioners in a difficult position, which will require us to take additional action. Perhaps the Governor should consider removing Mr. Gilzean from office now and appointing the incoming elected Supervisor of Elections, Karen Castor Dentel.”
