Orange County Comptroller Phil Diamond's office has unearthed a series of financial discrepancies within Visit Orlando, the region's principal tourism marketing arm, a report sent to Mayor Jerry Demings and the County Commissioners highlights several red flags. According to WFTV, the preliminary audit findings indicate that millions of dollars in public funds were wrongfully categorized as private. This mischaracterization of funding might obscure how public money is spent, as public and private funds adhere to different sets of rules and regulations.
Commissioner Mayra Uribe, who has been critical of Visit Orlando’s financial practices, expressed her discontent with the lack of accountability and transparency from the agency. In response to these concerns, the commissioners voted earlier this year to slash Visit Orlando's funding by $15 million. "That audit preliminarily shows everything that I had concerns about have been violated even as much as not even collecting appropriate funds that they should have been collecting," Uribe said, per WFTV.
The comptroller's investigation also found that Visit Orlando failed to report $6.3 million in expenditures from the tourist development taxes they collected. This omission not only speaks to the core of fiscal mismanagement but also, sheds light on a possible systemic issue within the organization – an institution that has managed an annual budget exceeding the $100 million mark. "I mean, it is absolutely the opposite of what transparency and good government should be," Uribe said, as cited by WFTV.
Further concerns were raised by an oversized emergency reserve fund that Visit Orlando amassed, totaling over $35 million against contractual agreements. Additionally, the agency failed to bill large advertising accounts, for services rendered – an oversight that resulted in more than $1.3 million not being reimbursed to taxpayers over two years. “It’s also showing a lot of waste and lack of your invoice [being] paid and also lack of telling us how you’re spending the money,” Uribe said, per ClickOrlando.
The report also cites unauthorized lobbying activities by Visit Orlando without the county's required permission. In a statement released by Visit Orlando, the agency stated, "Our team is reviewing and will be clarifying items with the Comptroller’s office, as we are committed to being good partners throughout this audit and beyond." The full extent of the fiscal misclassification and how the funds were allocated is expected to be detailed in the comptroller’s complete report, the release date of which remains unspecified, as reported by ClickOrlando.
