Orange elections chief hails $3 million recovery after spending scandal as a ‘victory for taxpayers'

Yahoo

12-03-2025

Orange County Elections Supervisor Karen Castor Dentel said Wednesday more than $3 million in questionable gifts handed out by her predecessor has been returned in a 'victory for taxpayers' that will help shore up her office's budget.
Glen Gilzean — appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to temporarily run the elections office — gave away the money to Valencia College and to several nonprofits for scholarships and voter-engagement efforts. Those moves angered county officials who said Gilzean distributed funds without proper approval that were needed for core election functions.
Gilzean, who left the post in January, at one point wanted the scholarship program Valencia was to create with elections office money to be named after himself.
Castor Dentel, a Democrat who won the election in November, said on Wednesday that Valencia had returned $2.1 million provided for the scholarship fund and that the Central Florida Foundation, which had been engaged to oversee voter-engagement initiatives, had sent back $864,500.
The foundation, which received about $1.1 million, had already granted 12 organizations some of their funds, and those contracts for voter registration and other efforts will be fulfilled, Castor Dentel said.
Previously, CareerSource Central Florida returned $1.9 million to the county that it had received from Gilzean, and it recently gave back another $275,000 to the elections office, Castor Dentel said. That money was provided to retrain temporary elections workers.
'These are dollars that we need to make sure we have the ability to run elections,' she said of the payments to nonprofits. 'We didn't have … excess funds to do this. We are still going to be behind even with this money returned.'
County officials said Gilzean's overspending was so severe that it left the office in jeopardy of not meeting payroll, and late last year they voted to freeze spending for his office.
Castor Dentel's team said they discovered 118 outstanding checks totaling more than $2 million and 100 unaccounted-for invoices totaling $700,000 on their first day, including debts to deputies, election workers and vendors essential to election security and operations.
The office, Castor Dentel said, has 'worked tirelessly to pay down these debts.'
Embattled Gilzean ends tenure as Orange elections chief
Gilzean's administration spent 51% of the office's budget in a roughly two-month span, according to a report released by Orange County Comptroller Phil Diamond. Though that spending coincided with the 2024 presidential election, Gilzean did not get the necessary approval from the county commissioners to exceed his allowed amounts, Diamond wrote.
Mayor Jerry Demings has criticized the office's unauthorized payments as improper, arguing the county doesn't fund the elections office so it can fund nonprofits, but instead to run elections.
Gilzean called the actions of Castor Dentel and Demings 'shameful and purely political' in a statement Wednesday.
'My commitment to my community is unwavering,' he said. 'Everything we did was rooted in increasing voter education and turnout. '
He accused the two Democrats of 'choosing to keep kids from better opportunities, hindering our community's progress, and suppressing voter engagement.'
DeSantis appointed Gilzean, a close ally, to the office in March 2024 following longtime Democratic elections chief Bill Cowles' retirement. Gilzean opted not to run for reelection this fall, and Castor Dentel prevailed with solidly blue Orange County voters.
Gilzean's dispute with county officials grew so heated that he filed suit, which he dismissed when he left office.
Castor Dentel said her office is continuing to probe her predecessor's spending, including expenditures on 'self promotion' and advertising after the election that she said 'are hard to justify.'
She declined to release more details on those expenses, adding that the review is ongoing.
'We're about ready to close the book on this chapter and move forward,' she said. 'I'm excited about that.'