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Buddy's Bungled Budgets

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 5, 2009

Buddy Johnson has proven to be one of Jeb Bush's biggest mistakes.

The former governor appointed Johnson Hillsborough's elections chief six years ago when Pam Iorio left the post to become mayor of Tampa. Johnson lost a re-election bid last year after making a mess of the office, and now it appears he may have mishandled funds. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement should investigate.

An audit released Tuesday said Johnson failed to follow state law when he overspent his budget by nearly $1 million and then failed to report it or repay the money in a timely manner. It's not clear what happened to the money, but he spent that amount on voter outreach programs that promoted his candidacy. The audit also criticized Johnson for comingling federal grant money with the office's general funds.

Then yesterday, Johnson's successor, Phyllis Busansky, told the commission the office had only $300,000 on the books as of Oct. 1, the beginning of the fiscal year. That's $2.7 million less than had been budgeted for operations. She doesn't know what happened to the money.

Busansky also sought and received a $2.2 million infusion of county money to pay for the optical scan machines Hillsborough voters used in November's election. Although Johnson had been given the money to pay the machine company, he apparently failed to do so.

With the office finances such "a disaster," as Busansky says, the commission was right to forward the results of the audit to authorities capable of tracking the money.

It's unclear whether Johnson is guilty of any crime, but it's obvious he was in over his head as supervisor of elections. He's guilty of incompetence if not malfeasance.

Johnson was held accountable by the voters in November. Now he needs to explain himself to law enforcement and the taxpayers of Hillsborough County.

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