If Greenberg stole, Seminole should get money back
Auditors say he spent $149K on personal legal bills. County deserves to get that money back
Maxwell: Citizens work too hard to have tax money taken without consequence.
Last week, the Orlando Sentinel detailed all the ways auditors say former tax collector Joel Greenberg stiffed Seminole County taxpayers by spending public money on everything from unneeded contracts to his personal legal bills.
Here’s my message for this week: Get the money back. Make taxpayers whole.
Too often in politics, we see stories about public officials wasting tax dollars, and everyone just seems to shrug and say: Boy, that stinks — but hey, that’s politics.
Wrong. If money is taken, it’s theft. And it needs to be recovered.
The average citizen works too hard to have her or his tax dollars taken without consequence.
Yet we haven’t heard a word about local officials trying to recoup the taxpayers’ money in this case. No one has even filed a claim.
So I asked why.
County officials acknowledged they had not done so yet but vowed they would.
“The people of Seminole County can rest assured we are not just letting this go,” said Greenberg’s successor, current tax collector J.R. Kroll.
That’s good to hear. I’d argue something should have been done by now.
Greenberg claimed a net worth of $5.8 million on financial disclosure papers filed two years ago. In his most recent disclosure, he claimed his net worth was down to $322,000.
If county officials hope to get back any money, they’d better get in line.
And I’m sick of taxpayers being at the back of the line — and of powerful people getting a pass.
See, one of the biggest problems in America’s justice system is the disparity between the meek and the mighty.
When Average Joes are suspected of taking public money, the government often goes after them with gusto. A home health
care aide accused of bilking Medicaid out of $13,000 gets perp walked and a six-month sentence.
But when bigwigs are accused of or linked to fraud accusations involving millions of tax dollars, they often get a pass. Or a deal. Or elected governor.
Greenberg seems to be an exception of late — but only as far as the feds are concerned.
Truly, the feds seem to be pursuing this case as aggressively as any involving a local public official that I can recall.
But while the feds have been looking under every rock, we’ve heard barely a peep out of state and local authorities — the ones who are supposed to help watch and control the money we’re talking about.
The Sentinel’s editorial board described the phenomena as a “spectacular lack of curiosity about Joel Greenberg” at the state and local level.
County officials say they’ll definitely pursue justice but are playing things carefully, wanting to see how the federal investigation wraps up first.
There may be some value to that. If the feds unearth smoking guns, it could make the county’s claims easier to pursue. But most of the federal charges Greenberg is facing — charges like stalking and making fake IDs — seem like they would shed little light on the accusations of misspent money we wrote about last week.
The county-ordered forensic audit cited hundreds of thousands of dollars in misspent money — some of which might be shady but not illegal. (Auditors, for instance, described the contracts Greenberg awarded to his political buddies as “either excessive or unnecessary.”)
But county officials say they’re convinced some of Greenberg’s spending was indeed illegal, including the $148,944.49 auditors described as “Joel’s personal attorney paid by office.”
See, public officials can use public money on legal expenses related to their public offices. But not on their own personal legal bills, which is what Seminole County Manager Nicole Guillet said auditors concluded Greenberg did.
On Wednesday, County Attorney Bryant Applegate said: “Seminole County certainly has plans to pursue any and all remedies in seeking reimbursement and restitution of illegal expenditures of public funds by the former tax collector.”
Good. That sounds definitive.
Taxpayers will be watching.
Obviously, we don’t have all the details about Greenberg’s case. He hasn’t been convicted of a thing. It’s possible none of the things he’s accused of are true.
But if Seminole County officials are already convinced this money was misspent, they owe it to taxpayers to try to get the money back — and pursue justice just as aggressively as the feds.