Busansky says her office will review financial records

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

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Supervisor of Elections Phyllis Busansky says inside these boxes are all the financial records that Buddy Johnson's CFO did not provide to the county auditor.

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY (Bay News 9) -- Hillsborough County commissioners got a break down of the supervisor of elections' office audit Wednesday.

The audit was done after former Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson asked for an additional $2.3 million last month. Johnson later withdrew the request, but commissioners want to know why he requested the extra funds.

Dan Pohto, Hillsborough County audit director, said a large amount of that money was spent prior to the election.

"Approximately $1.4 million that has been spent on ancillary equipment for the voting, on overtime, on salaries and everything else that goes with that," Pohto said.

The audit director says $360,000 from that $2.3 million request is for overtime racked up during the election and outreach expenses.

"The other $600,000 really couldn't be substantiated because I just couldn't get any records," Pohto said.

"This starts raising more questions than provides answers in our minds about what has happened," said Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin Beckner.

New Supervisor of Elections Phyllis Busansky told Hillsborough County commissioners what her office plans to do with the financial records that she says Johnson's CFO did not provide to the county auditor.

"We're going to sort through them all. The invoices that have not been paid or have been paid," Busansky said. "We have no idea, as I stand before you, and I'm really amazed at how much money has been spent and what is left and what isn't covered."

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This is what Johnson had to say about the audit.

"The money is all there. We've been totally cooperative," Johnson said. "This is politics."

Johnson says his chief deputy sent an e-mail to the county before the audit asking what records they needed. According to him, the county never responded.

But the audit director says calls and e-mails to Johnson were never returned.

Busansky says she'll present the new budget request in February after she goes through the records, although commissioners already decided to give her $300,000 for transitions fees.

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