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What you need to know ahead of Tuesday’s Primary Elections in Orange County
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Days after Orange County leaders learned the Supervisor of Elections office was taking $2.1 million in taxpayer money and converting it to scholarships for high school students, county staff are detailing where the money could’ve been spent instead.
Leaders have been careful to say they’re not opposed to scholarships in general, especially for underserved communities. However, Supervisor Glen Gilzean’s scholarships – named after himself – have been drawing criticism because he did not consult anyone at the county and the scholarships don’t directly appear to support his office’s operation.
Gilzean has defended the scholarships, saying as a constitutional officer he is allowed to allocate his budget as he sees fit.
“What’s controversial about helping kids?” Gilzean tweeted Tuesday. “If that’s awkward for [Mayor Jerry] Demings and the ruling political class in Orange County then we’ve got bigger problems here.”
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According to an email from Office of Management and Budget Director Kurt Peterson, Orange County was expecting Gilzean to send back $800,000 in unspent money in early October from his $22 million budget.
Gilzean sent back $688,542 – less than half what former supervisor Bill Cowles would typically return in his final years in office.
Petersen said surpluses from constitutional offices can be spent to replenish the county’s general fund, which helps the county manage unexpected events like hurricanes. He said it could’ve also gone toward a number of commitments commissioners made this year that have yet to be accounted for, such as pay raises for sheriff’s deputies.
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All Constitutional Officers are required by Florida Statute to return any unspent funding they did not use for their operations during the fiscal year,” Petersen wrote. “We will now look to other savings in the budget to make up the difference that was not received.”
The Gilzean controversy is putting a new spotlight on the lack of transparency in constitutional office’s budgets. While counties often break their spending plans out line-by-line, the budgets of sheriff’s departments, election agencies and others are frequently murky.
As a new representative in 2019, Anthony Sabatini introduced a bill to fix that by requiring detailed budgets be posted to each agency’s website.
“Even news agencies can’t really see what’s going on unless you’re doing numerous public records requests, because nothing is compiled, nothing is consolidated,” Sabatini explained. “There’s no details in what the money is being spent on, and… if you cannot see, then you can’t affect change.”
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