Worrell fingers predecessor's ‘misuse of funds' for Orange state attorney's budget shortfall

Yahoo

05-05-2025

The Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office is grappling with an $849,000 budget shortfall, and State Attorney Monique Worrell on Monday blamed part of the problem on a 'misuse of funds' by her predecessor.
Most of the deficit, Worrell said, comes from the loss of a $500,000 federal grant for victim advocates under the federal Victims of Crimes Act, which had its funding cut by Congress last year.
But Worrell also criticized what she called mismanagement by her predecessor Andrew Bain, ranging from hefty exit payouts for top officials to 'irresponsible financial decisions' regarding his own criminal justice initiatives. She said the office will undergo an audit to rectify how it was managed in the past and reveal ways to spend funds more efficiently in the future.
'Rather than functioning the way the office has functioned for the last 40 years, what are some efficiencies that we can use?' Worrell said. 'Are there things that we can do better so that we are using every dollar to its best and highest use? That's what I'm after at this point.'
As the region's top prosecutor, Worrell has in recent weeks trumpeted the need to address her office's funding issues, which she says has led to prosecutors being stretched thin amid rising caseloads. But Monday's press conference was her most detailed description of the deficit she says she inherited following her election victory over Bain, forcing her to go without filling key administrative roles, including a chief of staff and a fulltime public information officer.
It is also her clearest rebuke of Bain, who spent 17 months in office after Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended Worrell in 2023 and appointed him to replace her.
'The interim administration just compounded that problem and made it worse,' Worrell said. 'But it was it was always a problem and it will continue to be a problem until our circuit is funded at the level that it should be for the number of cases that we're processing on an annual basis.'
Central to Worrell's claims was the nearly $93,000 payout of unused annual leave to outgoing officials ahead of her return. Two of Bain's top brass, Chief Assistant State Attorney Ryan Williams and Deputy Chief Assistant State Attorney Jamie McManus, received a combined amount just over $70,000, according to figures released by Worrell's office.
Williams and McManus served just 16 months as Bain's No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, but 9th circuit policy required them to work two years in the circuit before they qualified for the payout.
As for Bain's supposed reckless spending, Worrell pointed to a $30,000 debt owed to the University of Central Florida for Bain's 'Turning Pages' program, a literacy initiative aimed at youth in the criminal justice system and taught by graduate students.
Another $67,000 was said to have been given to The Levitt Group, a consulting firm Worrell said specializes in airport concessions that was paid to offer 'criminal justice advice.'
Additionally, Worrell said Bain spent $9,800 on tablet computers from the Figgers Foundation, run by DeSantis donor Freddie Figgers, 'despite the office staff advising the administration' that cheaper tablets of good quality could be purchased on Amazon. It's not clear what the tablets were for.
UCF did not respond to a message seeking comment. But Jeremy Levitt, president and CEO for The Levitt Group, called Worrell's criticism 'rubbish,' saying airport concessions is but one part of a company that has 'consulted all over the world.'
Levitt said he served as Bain's senior criminal justice advisor at a 'heavily discounted rate,' consulting on topics like police deescalation training and hate crimes. He said he led a charge for the office to receive a $1 million federal grant to create a hate crimes task force, calling it 'a damn good return on your money.'
An assistant for Bain, since picked by DeSantis for a judgeship in Orange County, did not immediately respond to Worrell's remarks about his handling of the office. Worrell, however, pledged she is 'not going to use the resources of this office to investigate my predecessor.'
'This office's primary function isn't investigating crime, it's prosecuting it,' she said.
The State Attorney's Office's finances have been the subject of controversy in recent weeks, centered around a massive backlog of cases with too few prosecutors and support staff to clear them.
Florida's attorney general has sent prosecutors to tackle the 13,000-case backlog since the issue was first acknowledged, but Worrell has said that's a temporary fix and implemented a policy limiting the review of so-called 'non-arrest' cases as a way to address it.
As of Friday, the additional prosecutors have processed about 100 nonarrest cases since their arrival, though their work has been interrupted by the departure of their supervisor, Statewide Prosecutor Nick Cox.
Cox, who helped forge an assistance pact with Worrell, was recently hired to be chief assistant state attorney in Hillsborough County.
'For this budget year, there's no getting back on track — the damage is already done,' Worrell said. 'What we have done is we've gone to [Justice Administrative Commission] to ask for more authority to spend more money. That's going to help us get out of this hole, but part of the problem is that we were always underfunded.'