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County auditor identifies inspection inconsistencies, council accepts report 6-0
Summary
Internal Auditor Jonathan Edwards told the Volusia County Council the building inspections audit found inconsistent coding practices, a potential annual revenue gap related to reinspections and an outdated 'all-use group' fee; the council voted 6-0 to accept the report and directed staff to implement recommended fixes.
Jonathan Edwards, the county's internal auditor, presented the audit of building inspections in Growth & Resource Management and urged clearer definitions, stronger documentation and an independent quality-assurance review. "We did not find any evidence," Edwards said when asked whether inspectors had accepted bribes, emphasizing that the findings were procedural and not criminal.
Edwards identified three principal issues: inspectors were inconsistently coding failures as "partial" (which triggers no reinspection fee), the county may be undercharging reinspection fees allowed under Florida law (an identified statutory-compliance gap that could have increased collections in one example from about $7,178 toward a possible $28,000 figure), and the all-use-group (AUG) occupancy rate had not been updated since 2006 and is materially below current cost-based comparators. He recommended formal definitions for inspection result categories, implementing F.S. 553.80 to allow escalated reinspection fees when appropriate, an AUG rate update, and instituting quarterly KPIs plus an independent reviewer to sample completed inspections.
County Manager George Rectenwald and building-division staff told the council they agreed with many recommendations and were already implementing fixes; Rectenwald said the department retains discretion on some fee escalations but acknowledged documentation and access issues that the audit exposed. Council members pressed on whether the building division was losing money; Edwards confirmed inspections were run at a loss on many reinspections and offered the $400,000 estimate as the aggregate exposure tied to the audit findings.
Councilman Robbins moved and the council approved acceptance of the audit 6-0. Council direction focused on clarifying conflict-of-interest disclosures, tightening definitions so inspectors log consistent results in the Amanda permitting system, and returning with fee updates and implementation timelines.
