Amid scrutiny of his office’s spending, Orange County Elections Supervisor Glen Gilzean spent $4.3 million over the weekend, making more than 200 transactions and leaving the office without the money needed to pay employees’ salaries this week, Comptroller Phil Diamond said.

Totally baffled was Diamond, who first sounded the alarm at a board of county commissioners meeting last week after learning Gilzean had written an unauthorized check for $1.1 million to a non-profit organization. That brought the total of payments deemed improper by him and Mayor Jerry Demings to $5 million — and that was before the latest round of spending.

At last week’s meeting, county leaders voted unanimously to freeze additional payments to Gilzean’s office while Diamond investigated. In response, Gilzean warned that without additional payments from the county, which provides its budget, it would not be able to meet its payroll. But then, Diamond said, he continued to spend.

“He paid these checks knowing full well that he had to pay his employees’ payroll of approximately $250,000 this week. Unfortunately, he irresponsibly chose not to put his employees first,” Diamond said in his press release Monday evening.

Gilzean said the weekend’s expenses were for “legitimate election expenses” like security, technology and polling location costs.

“This is a blatant distortion of the facts,” he said Monday evening in a message to a journalist. “These are expenses that have become due as they would be after any election. »

In a series of tweets he posted to X following Diamond’s press release, Gilzean continued to assert that he could not pay his employees without more money from the county, and that he would not also not able to pay other vendors for election-related services, such as the Orange County Sheriff. Desk.

Diamond’s office would not provide a list of the 224 checks Gilzean allegedly authorized over the weekend – “essentially emptying his bank account,” the press release said – citing the comptroller’s investigation into the matter . Diamond said Tuesday that its audit team was still reviewing the multitude of documents it had received so far — and was awaiting more information on what wire transfers, if any, were made during the same period. .

The Sentinel also has a public records request pending for Gilzean’s office’s list of transactions.

However, the comptroller said in his statement that state law requires Gilzean to have received 38.64 percent of its budget at this point in the fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. To date, it has received half of the budgeted $19 million and has spent almost all of it, Diamond said.

Gilzean’s spending rate conflicts with Florida law, which restricts spending by constitutional officials who have not been re-elected or are not running for office. Gilzean was appointed to his position by Gov. Ron DeSantis and opted not to seek a full term in November.

The relevant law states that a county official in Gilzean’s situation is not allowed to spend more than one-twelfth of his office’s budget in any month without the approval of the county commissioners, which Gilzean didn’t ask, Diamond said.

“Now he is asking taxpayers to release him from his excessive spending,” Diamond said in the statement.

Gilzean filed a lawsuit last week hoping a judge would lift the county’s funding freeze, and on Monday amended his filing seeking an emergency order. As of Tuesday afternoon, no hearings were scheduled.

In the filing, Gilzean claims another state law requires the county to give his office 6.82 percent of its budget in December, regardless of what it previously received.

Gilzean’s spending whirlwind began when Demings objected to the elections supervisor paying $2.1 million to Valencia College for scholarships and $1.9 million to CareerSource Central Florida for retrain temporary election workers. Demings claimed he was not consulted on the programs before payments were made in September and that it was an inappropriate use of excess fees, which should be returned to the county rather than spent on programs not related to elections.

Gilzean argued the programs were legal and that he was the victim of a political witch hunt.