Summary

Section 28.35(6)(a), Florida Statutes[1], requires the Auditor General to conduct an annual audit of the operations of the Florida Clerks of Court Operations Corporation (CCOC).  The summary of our findings for the period July 1, 2005, through June 30, 2006, and selected actions through January 31, 2007, is as follows:

Finding No. 1:  Comparisons of the Clerks’ monthly revenue and expenditure reports submitted to the CCOC with Department of Revenue records of remittances by the Clerks disclosed differences totaling approximately $7.7 million.  Further, several Clerks did not make the required monthly remittances in accordance with the schedule included in the CCOC budget notification letters.

Finding No. 2:  An overall surplus of $27 million was budgeted by the 67 Clerks based on CCOC approved court-related budgets.  However, the actual surplus was $61.5 million (almost 2.2 times greater than budgeted).

Finding No. 3:  Eight Clerks remitted their excess fines, fees, service charges, and costs (totaling $949,920) to the Department of Revenue at least one week after the January 1 deadline established by law.  The late remittances ranged from 8 to 51 days late.

Finding No. 4:  Several Clerks reported incomplete or inconsistent performance measure data, and CCOC used a methodology for calculating one performance measure that resulted in inconsistent reporting of results.

Finding No. 5:  While CCOC certified to the Legislative Budget Commission that the 11 Clerks that requested maximum annual budget increases had met the established performance standards, and CCOC had increased these standards as compared to the previous year to provide incentive for improved performances by the Clerks. CCOC should continue to evaluate the criteria for meeting or exceeding the standards.

Finding No. 6:  CCOC’s Request for Proposals (RFP) process, in one instance, did not include a competition element that exists when a true competitive bid process is followed and, in another instance, CCOC contracted with the sole RFP respondent without taking any action to identify additional potential bidders to determine if it would be prudent to reissue the RFP and readvertise.

Finding No. 7:  CCOC did not obtain bills with a detailed listing of calls made for its cellular telephone services, precluding a determination as to whether the calls were for business purposes.  Also, CCOC did not confer with the Internal Revenue Service as to the value of the cell phone services to report as income for the Executive Director who did not make an adequate accounting of the business use of his assigned cell phone.

Finding No. 8:  The Executive Director received a vehicle allowance of $5,400 ($450 per month) for the 2006 calendar year.  However, based on a schedule that showed his actual travel for the entire 2006 calendar year, the Executive Director should have been reimbursed only $3,396 for mileage.