ORLANDO, Fla. – The battle over the Orange County supervisor of elections’ budget escalated Monday as Supervisor Glen Gilzean accused the county of misrepresenting the state of the office’s finances, and County Comptroller Phil Diamond demanded more documents as part of his investigation.
The back-and-forth between the county officers stems from concerns over how Gilzean spent millions in surplus dollars back in October from the previous budget, and also how Gilzean is spending money allocated from the current annual budget.
The Orange County Commission voted last week to freeze the December allocation from the pot of money set aside for the supervisor of elections on Diamond’s request.
Gilzean, in turn, sued the commission and Diamond to get the freeze lifted, saying the freeze was illegal and he would not be able to make payroll for staff without the money.
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The latest chapter began Monday afternoon when Gilzean’s office sent out a news release saying that while Diamond claimed Gilzean had nearly $4.3 million in the bank as of Nov. 30, the comptroller was not taking payments for general election expenses into account, including adding early voting sites and security services.
“A significant portion of these bills arrived in our office following the November General Election and have been processed, totaling more than $4.5 million,” said the news release from Gilzean’s office.
Gilzean’s office said staff will get paid this week, but could not say for certain whether staff would get paid again this month.
“The Comptroller is knowingly misleading the public. Our office can either make payroll or pay vendors, but not both. To make matters worse, the Comptroller knows I do not have the authority to move money into that account. Those are the rules, that is the law,” Gilzean said in a statement.
Two hours later, Diamond’s office released a statement of its own saying records obtained Monday showed Gilzean wrote 224 checks over the weekend, totaling almost $4.3 million, and accused Gilzean of “irresponsibly” not prioritizing his employees.
Diamond also says Gilzean has already spent nearly 50% of the $19.2 million annual budget for the office.
“Under the law, he was only entitled to receive 38.64% of the budget,” Diamond’s statement read. “However, he has received 50%. The records he gave us show that he has spent nearly the entire 50%. This spending rate greatly exceeds the limit he is allowed to spend by Florida law.”
Diamond’s office said the spending was currently under investigation, so documents could not be disclosed to News 6.
The budget battle began after it was reported that Gilzean gave a total of $4 million in surplus funds from the 2023-2024 budget to Valencia College and CareerSource Central Florida.
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings questioned why Gilzean did not return the excess funds to the county or use them to shore up operations for the November General Election. Gilzean said state law allowed him to use the surplus as he wanted without permission from the county commission, but Demings asked county attorneys to see how they could get the funds back.
Then last month Diamond said a confidential informant from Gilzean’s office came forward making several allegations, including that another $1.1 million from that budget was transferred to a nonprofit.
Diamond told the Orange County Commission that Gilzean stonewalled his auditing team when he asked for bank records, raising concerns, and asked the county to freeze the December budget allocation to Gilzean’s office.
It turned out Gilzean had sent the bank statements to Diamond’s office via snail mail and email, but the attachments on the email were so large that the email bounced back.
Gilzean then filed the suit to get the freeze on the December allocation lifted.
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