ORLANDO, Fla. —

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Wednesday marked a “huge victory” for Orange County taxpayers as Supervisor of Elections Karen Castor Dental took the stage to announce that more than two million taxpayer dollars, which had disappeared during her predecessor’s term, had been returned to the Elections Office.

Former Elections Supervisor Glen Gilzean, who served in the position from March to Jan. 2025, had knowingly misspent millions of taxpayer dollars, funneling funds to Valencia College for the $2.1 million for the Glen Gilzean, Orange County Supervisor of Elections, Promise of the Future Scholarship, as well as an additional $1.9 million sent to CareerSource and $1 million to local non-profit organizations. Recent investigations into Gilzean’s financial activity also revealed that, according to Castor Dentel, more spending had been allocated towards “self-promotion and advertising” on Gilzean’s behalf.

According to a statement made by Gilzean in Nov. 2024, he had discussed the spending with Mayor Jerry Demings, and that he was “absolutely” aware of it. Demings denied these claims to WFTV, saying: “Gilzean has never discussed with me his plans to allocate $2.1 million dollars in taxpayer monies for a scholarship fund. To my knowledge, nor has he discussed it with any of the County Commissioners. He certainly didn’t discuss such plans during the public budget workshops with the Board of County Commissioners regarding his [2024] fiscal year budget.”

Gilzean later rescinded his comment, claiming that he “didn’t need permission to use [the taxpayer money] for the scholarship,” as he, being a Constitutional Officer, “sets his office’s budget.”

A month after WFTV released the report, a public vote by local officials halted funding to the Election Supervisor’s office. The Orange County Board of County Commissioners said the county sent Gilzean $9.5 million during the first seven months of his term, and that Gilzean “[refused] to provide financial records proving he had not spent it all.”

READ: Orange County leaders vote to halt funding to election supervisor’s office over funding scandal

Karen Castor Dentel discovered the misspending at the school pep rallies, which had been planned as celebrations for the recipients of Gilzean’s scholarship award and after taking office, made recovering the missing taxpayer money one of the first items on her docket. The former supervisor’s actions had left Castor Dentel in a precarious situation, as based on county commission meeting reports, the incoming supervisor was “left with barely enough money in her budget to cover her office’s payroll.”

The Dec. 2024 report concluded that Gilzean violated Florida statute by “expending more than one-twelfth of the annual approved budget in all three months of the fiscal year; making a $1.137 million disbursement to Central Florida Foundation which was not approved in the itemized budget,” that he “wrote checks in excess of the available balance in the checking account” and “misstated financial position by failing to accrue expenses incurred in fiscal year 2024.” According to the report, the total amount that Gilzean misspent was $5,068,616, over three times the legal amount he was allowed to spend.

In her statement, Castor Dentel shared that, upon entering office, she discovered “118 outstanding checks” totaling more than $2 million, as well as “100 unpaid invoices for $700,000,” and immediately took action to rectify Gilzean’s misspending. She and her team let go “more than half a dozen” staff members that had been hired by Gilzean as a way to alleviate pressure from the payroll, as Orange County officials agreed to allow Castor Dentel to use the recovered payments to “cover the unpaid bills,” including outstanding debts from the 2024 election season.

In November, after Mayor Jerry Demings discovered further examples of misspending, including a contract between Gilzean and CareerSource that allocated the job-seeking non-profit $1.9 million, Valencia College President Dr. Kathleen Plinske sent a statement to Channel 9, offering to return the donation. “We appreciate the forward thinking of the Orange County Supervisor of Elections who expressed a goal to increase voter registration and college-going rates in underserved communities through the establishment of the Orange County Promise of the Future Scholarship Fund,” the statement read. “Although it would be disappointing if students do not have access to these scholarships, if Orange County asks for the return of the funds, Valencia will return the $2.1 million contribution.”

READ: Orange County Supervisor Election Glen Gilzean Scholarship Valencia College

And return they did. Early Wednesday afternoon, Castor Dentel stepped up to her podium and announced that Valencia College had returned the $2.1 million, bringing her grand total of recovered taxpayer dollars up to nearly $3.3 million, leaving only $140,000 still missing in circulation.

“We still have a lot of deferred payments, deferred maintenance, and we’ve made partial payments to some of our vendors,” said Castor Dentel. “They’re being very patient, so this is really going to allow us to start making up some of the deficit we have.”

Despite Valencia College’s actions, Castor Dentel and her team are still in a seven-figure deficit, thanks to Gilzean’s spending. The shortfall is, according to Castor Dentel, still upwards of $1 million.

“We’re being very fiscally conservative,” she told Channel 9. “We’re put in some more controls. All the financial decisions come through me and the CFO, and we’re just really trying to slow everything down.”

Further recovery attempts by Castor Dentel and her office will, per a staff member, aim to recover “the lion’s share” of the overall $5 million missing taxpayer dollars.

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