The long-awaited audit report on double-dipping and other alleged improprieties within the County-paid court reporting operation was finally released last week.
Beyond the revelations of public money being squandered— or, perhaps, stolen outright— the report exposes a miasma of confusion and ineptness within the offices of Court Administrator Theresa Westerfield and State Attorney Kirk Zuelch.
You've been reading about this scandal in Key West The Newspaper since writer Katha Sheehan broke it back in September, 1999. The Key West Citizen , the Miami Herald and the Keynoter picked it up last weekend.
The Citizen page one headline on June 16: "Court Audit Reveals 15 Possible Violations. State Attorney To Decide On Criminal Charges."
The Herald headline on the Keys page on June 17: "Court Reporters Double-Dipped, Audit Says."
An editorial in the Florida Keys Keynoter on June 21 concluded: "The audit casts a dark cloud of suspician over the judgment, ethics and/or honesty of court emplouees— past and present."
Back in 1995, four court reporters were hired as full-time employees of the Monroe County judiciary to ensure coverage of criminal proceedings. The plan allowed these employees to freelance on civil cases on their off hours.
In 1998, some of these county-paid court reporters, however, began to complain that Lisa Roeser, the team's supervisor, was not only abusing her position by taking most of the plum freelance jobs herself but, in some cases, other county court reporters alleged, she sometimes got paid twice for those jobs— once on her county timesheet and again through an outside court reporting firm.
During 1998, at least two of Roeser's subordinates blew the whistle on Roeser in a letter to then-Chief Judge Sandra Taylor, with copies to all the other judges. Those letters were ignored. Judge Taylor would later say that she took no action because the charges were too vague.
But last September, one week after Key West The Newspaper broke the story, Roeser quit her county job and Clerk of the Courts Danny Kolhage announced that he would audit the judiciary's books. Roeser was quoted in another newspaper as saying her departure had been planned and that she had given Westerfield five weeks notice.
When Kolhage released his half-inch-thick audit report last week, at least 15 possible discrepancies were reported, including 35 instances of alleged double-dipping by Roeser. Kolhage also reported that Roeser used her county work phone number in advertisements for her private court reporting business.
The audit report also revealed that the State Attorney's Office paid $11,000 to Florida Keys Reporting (FKR) for criminal depositions and transcription work performed by county-paid reporters working as freelancers for FKR.
Not only are the county-paid court reporters disallowed from receiving additional compensation for handling criminal work, the audit report said, the State Attorney's Office should have used the county court reporters, who were already being paid by the County.
The explanation from the State Attorney's Office was that nobody had ever told them about the availability of the county-employed court reporters— even though they had been on the payroll since 1995.
The audit report also revealed that 84 "misleading" invoices had been submitted for payment by Florida Keys Reporting for work done for the county by county-paid court reporters. These invoices indicated that the work had been performed by Jill Middlemiss, owner of FKR, rather than by the county employees working as contractors for Middlemiss.
Lisa Roeser is now reportedly working for FKR.
Court Administrator Theresa Westerfield defended her failure to detect the double dipping, citing the complexity of the system.
"Hell, I'm confused," she was reported as saying in the Key West Citizen.
Westerfield also pointed out that the County Finance Dept. also failed to detect the double-dipping and other irregularities.
"That office also reviewed and approved these invoices," she said in her response to the audit report.
But Kolhage took issue with that.
"The invoices in question were submitted to the Finance Dept. after approval by the Court Administrator," he said. "The Finance Dept. must rely on the approval of Court Administration regarding the validity of the information on the invoices submitted for payment."
Westerfield may regret pointing the finger at Kohlage's Finance Dept. That is the agency that pays all the County's bills. And no bill gets paid without Kohlage's approval. Do you think that the Finance Dept. will now pay any of Westerfield's invoices without full and complete documentation?
The audit also revealed a number of other instances of inefficiency and waste. Supposedly, the State Attorney's Office is investigating— and has been since last September. That in itself should give you some clue about how serious the so-called investigation is.
Some of the alleged improprieties occurred within the State Attorney's Office. Do you think they're investigating themselves?