An audit of the Walton County Tourist Development Council found that —like its neighbor Okaloosa County neighbor — it failed to keep a sharp eye on a gift card program established with BP money to lure tourists following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The TDC’s “inadequate” controls prevented auditors from “completely accounting” for $121,000 worth of gift cards handed out, an internal auditor within the Walton County Clerk of Courts office found.
“We were unable to link the people using the cards to a specific location and specific spending dates,” TDC Executive Director Jim Bagby said.
Auditors also found $10,750 in gift cards the TDC “failed to account for at all,” said Bagby, who recently presented a summary of audit findings to the TDC’s governing board.
Northwest Florida counties received millions of dollars in grants and settlements from BP in the months following the oil spill to give struggling tourist economies a boost.
In Walton and Okaloosa counties, the TDC presented gift cards to visitors as an incentive to book with local bed tax collectors. Walton County’s TDC, then headed by Dawn Moliterno, offered $250 gift cards.
Walton County’s partially and completely unaccounted for gift card funds “in a different time and different place would have been significant,” Bagby said.
In Okaloosa County, as much as $1 million in gift cards remain unaccounted for. Mark Bellinger, the TDC director at the time of the oil spill, killed himself in May 2012 after it was discovered that he stole millions of dollars from the county.
“Compared to Bellinger, this is like somebody took an 8 cent tip off the table,” Bagby said.
But Bagby added that poor accounting all around is “indicative of poor management processes.”
“Basically we got an $8 million windfall and we didn’t change our structure. We were ill prepared for that to happen,” he said. “We’re better prepared now.”
Bagby said he will ask the Walton County Commission to allow him to hire a director of administration to oversee future business transactions.
Walton County Clerk of Court Alex Alford has declared the TDC audit off limits to the public until its contents are approved by county commissioners, Bagby and other sources confirmed.
Alford did not return a phone call Friday seeking comment.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.