District Office 2539 Palm Bay Road NE Suite 5 Palm Bay, FL 32905 Suite 1401, The Capitol 402 South Monroe Street Tallahassee, FL 32399-1300 (321) 409-2017 (850) 717?5053 (321) 409-2019 (Fax) District Secretary Legislative Aide Anna Budko Joe Howard Ran dy Fine Imp-h. Florida House of Representatives State Representative, District 53 The Honorable Debbie May?eld, Chairman June 20, 2017 Joint Legislative Auditing Committee 324 Senate Of?ce Building 404 South Monroe St. Tallahassee, FL 323 99?1 100 Dear Chairman May?eld, With this letter, I am requesting that the Joint Legislative Auditing Committee direct the Auditor General to conduct a comprehensive and in-depth audit of the operational practices and managerial oversight in the City of Palm Bay. I represent the entirety of Palm Bay, and over the past several months have received numerous calls from my constituents in response to multiple media reports regarding two related issues. First, my constituents are concerned that the City Council may not be acting in accordance with the City Charter. Speci?cally, they are concerned that the Mayor, who under the City?s Charter is merely a Councilman and meeting Moderator, appears to be operating in a ?Strong Mayor? form of government. The Mayor has, by his own admission, attempted to unilaterally put city employees on ?probation,? stated on behalf of the City that employees were un?t? to be employed by the City, and used the of?cial seal of the City to put a City-approved imprimatur on his individual opinions, which under the Charter have no more legal weight than any other Councilman. Second, they are concerned that the resulting dysfunction at the Council level has led to inadequate controls and supervision amongst senior city managers, both by the Council and by the individual managers. They are concerned that the City Attorney is operating independent of the City Council and multiple additional mid?level managers are operating without appropriate oversight of senior managers or the City Council. It has been reported that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are actively investigating conduct that may have resulted from this lack of appropriate oversight, and it is not the purpose of this request to be duplicative of any criminal investigation. But criminal conduct, should it have occurred, can only exist in an environment of inadequate controls and oversight. It is not criminal to be a bad supervisor or to be a dysfunctional Council but it can create an Committees and Sub?committees: Careers Competition Subcommittee Health Quality Subcommittee -- Joint Legislative Auditing Committee Natural Resources Public Lands Subcommittee -- PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee -- Public Integrity Ethics Committee Vice Chairman, Brevard County Delegation June 20, 2017 Page 2 environment where criminal activity can ?ourish. I am concerned that is what is occurring in Palm Bay. As a new member of the JLAC, I was impressed by the level of thoroughness the Auditor General brought to the special audit of the city of Archer, a town of only approximately 1,000 residents. That Audit laid out many non-criminal failures of internal controls and provided a road map for that town to recover. I believe that Palm Bay requires a similar outside, top-to-bottom, review. Cities in the State of Florida are the creation of the State, which has granted them Charters to operate. As our creation, we have an obligation to ensure that they are operating appropriately and protecting our constituents from out-of-control local governments. All indications are that Palm Bay is in crisis, and it is my hope that an independent, non-criminal audit can help them remedy these failings so they can administer their locality as designed by our Constitution and the Legislature. I appreciate your support in this matter. Representative Randy Fine cc: Representative Daniel Raulerson, Vice Chair