Tax-funded sports chief's pay tops $230,000

Orlando Sentinel ^ | June 18, 2006 | Dan Tracy

[Rockingham]

SENTINEL SPECIAL REPORT

Tax-funded sports chief's pay tops $230,000

A veteran Central Florida lawmaker has built his day job running a nonprofit agency into a publicly subsidized post that has paid him more than $230,000 a year.

State Rep. Randy Johnson, R-Celebration, a candidate for the position of chief financial officer in the state Cabinet, has been president of the Central Florida Sports Commission since 1995. The commission was created two years earlier to recruit everything from rural bass-fishing tourneys to bicycle races to the region.

An Orlando Sentinel review of 13 years of commission finances shows that by 2003, the most recent year for which records were available, Johnson's compensation had nearly tripled from the $85,000 he was paid in his first year. Since its inception, the commission has received more than $8 million in local tax dollars with little oversight.

The Sentinel's review also found that local governments have routinely continued to fund the commission with little debate about whether it is a good use of the tourist and property taxes the governments contribute.

Some officials question Johnson's dual role, seeking commission funding from the same governments that look to him for help in the Legislature.

[Rockingham]

This is a well done investigation of how a GOP state representative in Florida has leveraged himself into a $230,000 annual income from a nonprofit funded by local governments. Closely read, the article and its side pieces suggest how to find similar abuses.

[gcruse]

Overpaid, yes, but the sports commission isn't purely pork, and the headline is not what is on the article.

[Admin Moderator]

Only use the published headlines.

[Rockingham]

The common defense of pork is that taxpayers got something for their money; the common criticism of pork is that what the taxpayers got is not worth the cost. The performance of the Sports Commission has never been objectively assessed, it has never been audited by outsiders, there are serious complaints about it, it is run by a state legislator that local government funders dare not offend, and that legislator and his sidekick are paid about two or three times what they are worth. Smells like pork to me.