ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Orange County suffered a political embarrassment Tuesday night moments after commissioners voted to temporarily cease funding their elections office, citing a lack of financial transparency.
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County Comptroller Phil Diamond told Mayor Jerry Demings and commissioners he had asked Supervisor of Elections Glen Gilzean to turn over bank statements showing the office’s spending since October 1, but had been stonewalled by Gilzean and his staff.
He laid out concerns that Gilzean had received $9.6 million since the start of the fiscal year and, given recent revelations about spending on scholarships and grants, was concerned all the money was gone.
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“Mr. Supervisor: open the books,” Diamond said. “The people have a right to know how you’re spending their money.”
But Diamond and the commissioners who unanimously voted in favor of his request had a problem: Gilzean had already sent over the records.
Diamond just hadn’t received them.
In a screenshot posted to social media shortly after the vote, Gilzean provided a copy of the “sent” email to one of Diamond’s right-hand staffers with attachments showing the bank statements were sent at 1:38 p.m.
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“It is incumbent upon the media of central Florida to hold the mayor to account for his empty threats and flagrant misrepresentation of state law,” his spokesman, Christopher Heath, said in a statement that followed the post. “Unfortunately for the Mayor, the threat of withholding funding from an independent constitutional office is not only outside the board’s power but also outside the law.”
Diamond sounded surprised, initially, to find out the bank statements had been sent. Less than two hours later, he emailed an explanation, along with screen shots from his IT system.
“The email attachments exceeded our server’s file size limit and the email was rejected by the server,” Diamond said. “The Supervisor should have received a ‘non-delivery receipt’ indicating that his email did not go thru.”
It’s unclear if a non-delivery receipt was ever received.
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Responding to a follow-up question, Diamond confirmed his staff did not reach out ahead of the Tuesday discussion to give Gilzean’s office a “final chance” to send over the bank statements, which could have prompted a conversation that headed off the commission vote.
Many commissioners, reached by phone Tuesday evening, were not fully up to speed on what transpired after their meeting. Several expressed disappointment at the sequence of events.
“The quickest way for us to get these records will be for our auditors to pick them up from the Supervisor’s office,” Diamond said. “They will go over there tomorrow to pick up the records.”
It’s not clear whether commissioners will reverse their vote, which was contingent on receipt of the bank statements, and if so, when.
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