CRESTVIEW — Okaloosa County Clerk of Court Don Howard vigorously defended his financial reporting practices before county commissioners Tuesday night.
His comments followed a presentation by Stephen C. Riggs IV of Carr, Riggs & Ingram, which recently issued a risk assessment of the county’s vulnerability to fraud and theft.
“The fraud risk is fraud risk based on policies by the board, not the clerk’s office,” Howard said.
Riggs’ report said there are major structural deficiencies in the clerk’s oversight of finances within the departments that fall under the County Commission. He told commissioners Tuesday that the Clerk of Court is charged under the Florida Constitution with that task.
“If it’s not his responsibility, then whose is it?” said Riggs, who added that there’s “a big hole” in the Clerk of Court’s financial reporting process. “ … At the end of the day, if someone is not responsible, then no one is responsible.”
But Howard told commissioners he has no statutory or constitutional authority to direct the policies, financial or otherwise, of individual county departments.
“The courts have ruled … that we don’t have that authority,” Howard said.
He also sharply criticized Riggs’ report, which included a letter to commissioners that Howard described as “biased” and “unsupported rhetoric.”
The report asserted that without “meaningful changes” the next major public theft or fraud “is not a matter of if but a matter of when.”
Howard objected to the overall tone of Riggs’ letter and said he unfairly was placing blame on the Clerk of Court’s office when the blame for the Mark Bellinger scandal of 2012 belongs primarily to Bellinger.
He also took Riggs to task for compiling his final report without making Howard or his finance staff aware of the findings.
Howard said significant changes have been made in his office as well as in county departments relating to financial reporting in the wake of the Bellinger scandal.
“It seems like we still got a lot of work to do,” said Commissioner Wayne Harris, expressing frustration that deficiencies still exist months after initial changes were implemented.
Riggs told commissioners the county must apply the same increased oversight it uses in the Tourist Development Department to every other area under the board’s authority.
“There have been some changes put in place, but I did not see it applied consistently across all the departments,” he said.
Commissioner Nathan Boyles said Riggs’ report is a painful but necessary review of the county’s efforts to improve financial oversight.
“We’re doing it deliberately and we’re doing it so Okaloosa County is better,” Boyles said.
“I do think there is some opportunity for us to find a way forward.”
Howard still was defending his office to commissioners late Tuesday night.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Kari C. Barlow at 850-315-4438 or kbarlow@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @KariBnwfdn.
