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Vice chairman cites forensic audit, delays MIDC payments amid billing irregularities
Summary
A preliminary Plante Moran review flagged significant billing anomalies in Monroe County's MIDC program; Vice Chairman Levens said he will delay payments while the firm completes its forensic audit, which the county expects by Dec. 19, 2025.
Vice Chairman Levens told the Monroe County Board of Commissioners that a preliminary forensic update from Plante Moran identified "significant billing anomalies" among assigned-counsel invoices and that, out of caution, he will delay certain MIDC payments until the audit is complete. The audit reviewed invoices paid between January 2023 and June 2025 and flagged two attorneys — labeled in the report as Attorney 1 and Attorney 2 — for patterns the firm described as potentially inflated or inaccurate.
Levens outlined the audit highlights: Attorney 1 was paid roughly $596,000 over less than two years and appears to have billed about 5,500 hours (an average of roughly 56 hours per week, numerous weekend days and isolated entries claiming 20–23-hour days). Attorney 2 was paid about $478,000 with similar irregularities, including duplicate or inaccurate case numbers and block entries that combined multiple days. "I am going to delay payments out of caution," Levens said, calling the pause "wise stewardship of the millions of dollars of taxpayer funds" that come before the board. He said Plante Moran expects to finish the forensic review by Dec. 19, 2025.
Other commissioners split between defending full payment to contractors who rely on timely remittance and supporting more in-depth scrutiny. Public comments from local defense attorneys at the meeting emphasized that some billing practices (for example, end-of-case or block billing) can be legitimate in indigent-defense work and asked the board to avoid penalizing attorneys unfairly while the audit proceeds. Sean Myers, a local defense attorney, told commissioners "that billing is totally normal for an attorney" and said the two attorneys named in some public reports had already left the MIDC list months earlier.
The board did not take immediate formal disciplinary action at the meeting; Levens and other commissioners said they will await Plante Moran's final forensic report before deciding on next steps. The preliminary findings prompted renewed calls from commissioners for improved internal review procedures at the county MIDC office, and for transparency about whether paid time entries match verifiable case work. The board said it will revisit the issue after the forensic audit is complete.
