Busansky: Hillsborough Elections Office Still In Financial Mess

Hillsborough County's elections office is still in deep financial trouble despite getting an emergency $2.2 million allocation today from county commissioners to pay for optical scan voting machines.

Recently elected Elections Supervisor Phyllis Busansky told commissioners her office had just $300,000 as of Oct. 1, the beginning of the 2009 fiscal year. That's $2.7 million short of what was budgeted for operations by her predecessor, Buddy Johnson.

Busansky said Johnson left her office's finances "a disaster," and that she could not identify where the missing $2.7 million was spent. That information was not available in an audit of the department released Tuesday night by accounting firm Ernst & Young.

This morning, commissioners unanimously approved Commissioner Rose Ferlita's motion to forward the audit to the appropriate law enforcement authorities and ask for an "immediate investigation."

In addition, Secretary of State Kurt Browning is monitoring developments regarding Johnson's stewardship of public funds, Busansky said. Once Ernst & Young finishes another audit covering the period from Oct. 1 to Jan. 5, she said, Browning will decide whether to go to the state auditor general for further investigation.

"He'll pull a trigger ... if there's a trigger to be pulled," Busansky said.

The audit released Tuesday claims Johnson broke state law by overspending his budget by nearly $1 million and not reimbursing the county in a timely manner.

County Commissioner Rose Ferlita wants the audit forwarded to law enforcement for investigation.

"Somebody needs to act on this because this continues to add insult to injury to the constituents we represent," Ferlita said Tuesday night. "So whatever the consequences are for breaking those statutes should fall on Buddy Johnson or anybody else who breaks the dictates of their office."

Johnson did not respond to messages Tuesday night. But his former deputy, Kathy Harris, sent an e-mail to the media this morning saying the audit released Tuesday differed markedly in its conclusions from an exit audit she reviewed last month with Ernst & Young.

"At no time was there mention of any concerns about illegal activities or issues regarding lack of information, etc, for the audit period which ended Sept. 30," Harris wrote in the e-mail.

Robin Smalley, a senior manager with Ernst & Young, said this morning that the audit reviewed with Harris was a draft.

"The audit released last night was our final report," Smalley said.

The audit found few internal controls over Johnson's spending after he took control of his office's $13 million budget from the county in June. Little accountability was provided for millions of dollars in spending.

Johnson lost a re-election bid in November.

The commission gave him enough money last year to pay for the optical scan voting machines, but he left office in January without making the final payments. The audit does not address how the money was spent.

Florida law requires county officers to make a financial report to the county commission within a month of the close of the fiscal year. Any money spent in excess of what the office was appropriated should be repaid then.

"The former supervisor did not make the annual report and corresponding payment with the 31-day-of-close timeframe," the audit said.

In one of his few written responses to auditors, Johnson said Florida law allows the elections office "more flexibility" in complying with the reporting rule because of the legislatively mandated election cycle.

The audit also said Johnson's office did not put in place the proper budgetary controls to prevent or detect the overspending.

The state law the auditor said Johnson violated does not provide for any penalties other than to suspend the elected official from office, a penalty no longer applicable to Johnson.

Although it is unclear in the audit how Johnson spent the money owed to the voting machine company, records from the elections office show he spent roughly $1 million in county money since June on voter outreach and public awareness campaigns that featured his name and photograph. An additional $300,000 from a federal grant was spent for the same purpose, according to the Florida Secretary of State's Office.

Busansky and others claim Johnson used the education and voter outreach money as a way to spend public money to promote himself during his campaign for re-election last year.