Florida follow-up audit finds discrepancies with economic incentive programs

(The Center Square) — The Florida Auditor General recently published a follow-up audit of the Sunshine State’s economic incentives programs and found some uncorrected issues remain.

The Florida Department of Commerce assists the governor in working with the Legislature, state agencies, business leaders, and economic development professionals. For fiscal 2023-24, state lawmakers appropriated approximately $1.8 billion.

Together, they formulate plans to implement consistent policies and strategies that help promote economic opportunities for Floridians and serve as the state’s chief agency for business recruitment, expansion, and economic development. State law requires the department to contract an independent third party to verify that recipients comply with the terms set in their economic development incentive agreement.

These independent contractors are required to have a level 2 background screening before they can access recipient information. Furthermore, state law requires all employees in positions of trust, responsibility, or sensitive location to undergo level 2 screenings before and during employment.

The auditor general found that the department had failed to evidence that all independent third-party contractors with access to confidential information had all had level 2 background screenings. This issue was found in a previous audit.

According to the audit report , the department had not yet addressed issues regarding access to the Salesforce web-based system, which is used to track the progress of economic development incentive applications and capture related data. The system was found to be available to some incentive recipients, third-party personnel, and division personnel up to 117 days after their employment or association with the department had ceased.

The auditor general recommended the department improve its controls over access to the system, to reduce the risk of unauthorized disclosure, modification, or destruction of department data and IT resources.

The report further noted issues around access controls to purchasing cards, stating that the department’s ex-employees had access to taxpayer dollars after they left their employment, in some instances up to 241 after.

Although there were no unauthorized purchases found, the auditor general recommended the department management work on promptly canceling the employees' access upon termination.

A similar issue was found with FLAIR, which the department utilizes to authorize payments and record and report transactions. Ex-employees had access to FLAIR up to 450 days after they left department employment. The auditor general recommended that the department again promptly cut access once an employee is terminated.