Summary

This audit of the Office of the Public Defender, Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, focused primarily on assets, liabilities, fund equities, revenues and cash receipts, expenditures and disbursements, budgetary controls, management reporting, and assignment and use of motor vehicles. For each of these areas, our audit included examinations of various transactions (as well as events and conditions) during the period March 1, 1997, through February 28, 1998. A matter coming to our attention relating to noncompliance with various guidelines and a significant deficiency in the design or operation of the internal control for those operations audited is as follows:

Salary Rate

At June 30, 1997, the actual salary rate ($6,919,983) of the Office of the Public Defender, as determined by the Florida Justice Administrative Commission, exceeded by $237,789 the salary rate limit established pursuant to Section 216.181, Florida Statutes, and approved by the Executive Office of the Governor. In addition, contrary to Section 216.181(9)(b), Florida Statutes, the Office’s actual salary rate for the month of February 1998 exceeded by more than 5 percent the approved salary rate. The excess salary rate at June 30, 1997, did not lead to an associated overexpenditure of the amounts budgeted in the 1996-97 fiscal year for salaries and benefits. However, the practice of exceeding the approved salary rate could potentially result in an inappropriate balance between the amounts budgeted and expended for salaries and benefits and the number of positions authorized and filled. (See paragraphs 19 through 23.)

The Public Defender’s written response to the audit findings and recommendations included in audit report No. 13284 is presented as Exhibit D.