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Audit Will Look At Johnson's Use Of Federal Voter Education Funds

Tribune file photo

Buddy Johnson's former chief of staff filed a report to the current supervisor of elections.

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By JOHN W. ALLMAN and ADAM EMERSON

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 12, 2009

Updated: 03/12/2009 07:44 pm

TAMPA - A state agency will hire an independent auditor to determine how former Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson spent federal funds meant for voter education and equipment.

The audit, being paid for by the Florida Department of State, will look specifically at about $3.2 million in federal Help America Vote Act dollars that Johnson's office received since 2006.

The bulk of the money was supposed to be spent on voting machines, with the remaining portion going to voter education and poll worker training. Federal money cannot be used to campaign for office.

Johnson spent about $944,000 in federal funds, plus an additional $1 million in county funds, on an expansive voter education campaign, according to county records. The money paid for everything from radio and TV advertisements to hiring consultants to reach out to specific groups, such as black voters.

One of the consultants was Michelle B. Patty, who received $16,204 in October for "African American community outreach."

Patty, who runs a medical and legal referral service, was responsible for using the money to educate voters. On Election Day, however, Patty also reportedly paid at least one low-income resident $100 to stand outside a voting precinct and hand out literature supporting Johnson's re-election campaign against Phyllis Busansky.

Towanda Speights, a single of mother of four, said she got a call from a friend about getting paid to work for Patty.

Speights lives at Robles Park Village, a Tampa Housing Authority property. She pays $74 a month rent for a three-bedroom apartment.

Speights, who is currently serving four years probation, has a criminal history, including time in prison. She said she had never met Patty prior to agreeing to work on Election Day.

Speights was assigned to stand outside Fair Oaks Recreation Center on North 34th Street, handing out literature. She said she knew of about five other people from Robles Park who were recruited to work for Patty.

Jerome Ryans, housing authority president, said he saw Laura Harris, Bethune Highrise resident council president, and another public housing resident handing out campaign literature for Johnson on Election Day. One of the women – Ryans could not remember which one – was wearing a Buddy Johnson T-shirt.

Bethune Highrise is a senior housing facility on West Union Street.

Harris refused Thursday to say whether Patty paid her to work in support of Johnson.

"Michelle and I have a friendship," she said. "We don't have an employee-employer relationship."
Patty did not return repeated calls for comment.

Consultant Not Paid With Campaign Funds

It's not clear what funds – county or federal – were used to pay consultants such as Patty. She was not paid out of Johnson's campaign funds, according to records.

Johnson did not return calls for comment.

Jennifer Krell Davis, a Florida Department of State spokeswoman, said because federal voting monies were co-mingled with county funds, any determination of how the money was spent would be difficult without a thorough review.

"That's what we have to get down there and figure out," Davis said. "It's just trying to figure out what was paid out of what pot of money."

Johnson's office spent thousands in voter education funds on other consultants in the months before the election.

And – through his re-election campaign – he also paid $2,500 to Enhancement Enterprises, a consulting firm managed by Jarvis El-Amin.

El-Amin and Patty are both well known in the black community. They had previously served together as managers of a defunct company called Help, which dissolved in 2006.

Residents across Tampa recalled talking to one or both of them at different events prior to the election.
Dwight Bolden, a West Tampa activist and longtime friend of Patty, said they spoke at length on several occasions about diversity and the difference between Johnson and Busansky.

"One of the things that she opened up my eyes to that I didn't realize at the time [was] that Buddy Johnson's office was 100 percent diverse," Bolden said.

Patty never encouraged him to vote for Johnson, or even asked whom he planned to support, Bolden said.

Frank Reddick, a former interim Tampa city councilman who served as registered agent for Patty and El-Amin's company, said he watched the pair encourage many residents to vote. He didn't hear either of them actively endorse Johnson.

Reddick said the buzz in the black community was that Johnson was the more diverse candidate. He said the source of that information was never clear.

"I know there was some sentiment in the black community that Buddy had a significant amount of African Americans working on his staff, and blacks should be sensitive to that," Reddick said.

Joe Robinson, who lost the 2000 campaign for elections supervisor to Pam Iorio, spoke to Patty at a candidate forum in East Tampa. She told him she was involved in voter education.

El-Amin was at the same event, pulling black residents together to have their photo taken with Johnson for use on campaign materials.

"Jarvis told me we're going to take a picture, we're trying to get Buddy out there," Robinson said. "We had to sign something saying it was OK to use this."

El-Amin did not return a call for comment.

Ex-Aide Blames Poor Management

Johnson lost his re-election bid to Busansky by a little more than 18,000 votes. Since then, he has been besieged by accusations of mismanagement and overspending.

One audit found Johnson overspent his budget by nearly $1 million and violated state law by failing to reimburse the county. A federal investigation into his office by the FBI is ongoing.

No information on the audits or the federal investigation is mentioned in a report released today by his former chief of staff Kathy Harris.

The omission was intentional, according to Harris.

In the 16-page report, Harris outlined the worst of what happened during the primary and general election nights, saying poor management led to "misplaced ballots, chaos and disarray."

Among her criticisms:

Some poll locations were too small and short on voting equipment and staff, which resulted in lines that ran long hours after the polls were scheduled to close;

There were technical problems with the voting machine vendor, Premier Elections Solutions, during the primary and general election;

Callers faced "extreme delays" in reaching the phone bank because of a breakdown in communication during peak hours of voting.

In addition, "hanging over the entire process like a dark cloud," Harris wrote, was an employee fear in making a mistake that might generate negative news coverage.

That fear of "a negative story in the news, or worse severe disciplinary action may have created a stifling work environment," she wrote.

Harris wrote the report for Busansky during the remaining months of her $175,000 contract. When Busansky took over as elections supervisor in January, one her first moves was to remove Harris from her Falkenburg Road office.

Harris did not return repeated calls for comment.

Reporter John W. Allman can be reached at (813) 259-7915. Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285.

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