ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Several high-ranking members of the Orange County Supervisor of Elections office lost their jobs shortly before Thanksgiving, weeks after the office was enveloped in a spending scandal.
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Four sources familiar with the office’s workings said the chief financial officer, who had been on the job for a decade or more, was one of the people let go.
The others included the person tasked with overseeing the office’s mail-in ballot operation, who had been with the office for decades, as well as a newer hire in the voter outreach division, they said.
All three affected employees had positions connected to the controversy, in which Supervisor Glen Gilzean routed millions of dollars meant to prepare for elections and beef up security toward high school scholarships and nonprofit grants.
It was not clear if any of the three played direct roles in the decision-making. Emails provided by CareerSource, which received and then returned $1.9 million, showed Gilzean largely worked out the deals himself, including requesting that the scholarships Valencia College was preparing to offer high school students be named after him.
Read: Orange County elections supervisor Gilzean responds to $5M spending controversy
Amid those who spoke to WFTV, there was universal belief the terminations were an effort to develop a scapegoat to deflect blame for the spending away from Gilzean.
“I will be assessing the team when I get there,” incoming Supervisor Karen Castor Dentel, who takes over the office in January, said in response to the news. “I will be happy to bring back people who are let go unfairly.”
Read: Gilzean overstepped authority when moving money around, attorneys say
When reached for comment, Gilzean’s spokesman refused to confirm or comment on the terminations or the reasoning behind them.
“We cannot discuss personnel decisions,” Chief Elections Administrator Chris Heath wrote.
Since WFTV broke the news of the spending in November, Heath and Gilzean have repeatedly said Gilzean was well within his rights to spend the $22 million Orange County allocated his office last fiscal year as he saw fit.
Read: Rage growing in Orange County after election office’s $5 million spending revelations
They have cited state law that demands unused funds get returned to county commissioners at the end of September to be reallocated within the county’s budget. However, the law is not as clear about whether the supervisor has the authority to reallocate significant sums of money within his own budget without seeking prior approval by the county.
Some lawmakers have said they could seek to clarify the law in the next legislative session.
Valencia College has offered to return its $2.1 million upon request, which Castor Dentel has promised to fulfill. The fate of another $1 million allocated to various nonprofits for voter outreach initiatives out of the current fiscal year’s budget remains uncertain.
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