Orange County Commission voted Tuesday to directly pay the upcoming payroll for the elections office employee a day after Christmas since elections supervisor Glen Gilzean’s bank account has a $800,000 deficit.
“We’re going to do the right thing by employees. That’s the bottom line here,” Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said.
In court and public meetings, the Orange County government is openly feuding with Gilzean over allegations of mismanagement and misspending. The Orange County Commission voted earlier this month to withhold Gilzean’s December budget payment but agreed Tuesday to pay Gilzean’s $250,000 payroll to payroll company ADP.
Gilzean did not attend Tuesday’s meeting but said on X after the vote that he was glad for the county’s vote.
“Today was a win for the Supervisor of Elections office,” wrote Gilzean, who is suing to fight for his December budget payment. “Unfortunately, our office was put in this position due to lies told by the Mayor & an astonishing misunderstanding of elections by the Comptroller. We will continue to fight in court and shine a light on the laws the county broke to score cheap political points using taxpayer dollars.”
The saga of Gilzean’s final weeks in office started when Orange County officials discovered the elections supervisor spent $2.1 million on student scholarships at Valencia College — an inappropriate use of taxpayer money for a department focused on running elections, Demings charged.
From there, officials learned more about Gilzean’s projects, including $1.9 million on career center training (which the center later returned) and, most recently, nearly $1.1 million to the Central Florida Foundation for administrative and consulting services.
“Plaintiff’s self-imposed dilemma has a simple solution: rescind the $1.1 million contract with Central Florida Foundation and utilize those funds to pay SOE employees on Dec. 26, 2024,” Orange County said in a court filing Tuesday.
Orange Comptroller Phil Diamond accused Gilzean of breaking the law this week by spending 51% of his fiscal year budget in 2.5 months.
“We’re in uncharted waters,” Diamond said Tuesday about the situation and Gilzean’s red deficit in the bank account.
Orange County Commissioner Nicole Wilson expressed frustrations about some of Diamond’s findings, including Gilzean writing a $45,000 check to the Orlando Regional Realtors Association and paying video production companies instead of making his payroll.
Diamond’s office described Gilzean’s books as having some expenses in the wrong fiscal year or some checks written but not immediately sent, adding to Orange County’s confusion as the Comptroller investigates the situation.
Meanwhile, Gilzean sued Dec. 5 and accused the county of illegally withholding his December budget payment. He blamed the county and Diamond for his inability to pay his employees and vendors.
The two sides are due in court on Wednesday because Gilzean wants to speed up his lawsuit before his term ends.
Gilzean, appointed this year by Gov. Ron DeSantis, didn’t run for a full term, so the next elections chief, Karen Castor Dentel, will be sworn in on Jan. 7.
Gilzean has defended his taxpayer-funded scholarships and career training, arguing he is thinking outside the box to solve the community’s problems of low voter turnout and support his office’s temp workers after their contracts recently ended.
Gabrielle Russon is an award-winning journalist based in Orlando. She covered the business of theme parks for the Orlando Sentinel. Her previous newspaper stops include the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Toledo Blade, Kalamazoo Gazette and Elkhart Truth as well as an internship covering the nation’s capital for the Chicago Tribune. For fun, she runs marathons. She gets her training from chasing a toddler around. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter @GabrielleRusson .
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