An internal audit of Volusia County building inspections found “critical control weaknesses” and other concerns, including questions about how county staff handled a permit application from a top county official.
The office of the county’s internal auditor, Jonathan Edwards, routinely audits different functions of the county government. The latest report, dated June 5 and over 50 pages long, lists a series of issues, concerns and recommendations about the county’s building inspections process. Building inspections are part of the county’s Growth and Resource Management Department.
The report says, “The audit identified control weaknesses across all stages of building inspection operations, including insufficient safeguards to prevent and detect conflicts of interest, thousands of expired permits without final inspection, significant revenue loss due to inconsistent fee practices, and gaps in permit documentation and system oversight.”
The audit focused on the 33,705 inspections conducted from Oct. 1, 2024, through Sept. 30, 2025. The audit selected 100 inspections for testing — 60 randomly selected (which represented “every 562nd inspection”) and 40 inspections that represented “higher risk scenarios.”
The Volusia County Council approved the audit as part of the 2025 Audit Plan.
The completed audit is on the County Council’s consent agenda for the Aug. 4 meeting, meaning it’s expected to be voted on with other consent agenda items instead of being reviewed separately. Council members can pull items from the consent agenda for individual review.
Audit scrutinizes permit application from a former Volusia County chief building inspector
The audit found a possible instance of “preferential treatment” involving the former chief building inspector at the time, who applied for a building permit for a 5,000-square-foot storage building. The permit was issued in April 2024.
The audit found several issues with the permit process, including multiple recalculations of the construction cost that reduced the permit fee. County staff said the chief building inspector, Joshua Hemmerlein, disputed the initial construction cost, according to the audit. The permit fee went from $1,691.78 to $388.88, and the recalculations were made “with no written justification, no licensed reviewer, and no documented approval.”
Hemmerlein planned to leave the county in September 2024, according to his resignation letter. He now works for the city of DeLand. He couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on July 30. The audit report doesn’t accuse him of wrongdoing.
The report says that “the former Chief Building Official allegedly approved the reductions, based on a typedcomment by the Permit Process Manager. However, no written approval (via signature or initials) ortechnical justification is captured in AMANDA (the permitting system).”
Also, among other things, someone recorded a siding inspection on the property, which had no siding. That caused the permit expiration date to be extended for several months without a $25 extension fee.
The audit report says about the permit that, “Due to staff turnover and absent documentation, the appropriateness of these actions cannot be verified. This case illustrates the critical control weaknesses that allowed these actions to occur undetected.”
After the audit started, the county’s human resources division started an investigation “into whether inspectors were performing inspections that were not conducted or were otherwise invalid.” Three inspectors separated from the county before the investigation ended. The report doesn’t state what happened.
The inspectors were Douglas Landes, Lance Knowles and Timothy Caldwell, according to county spokesman Michael Ryan. The county released the names about 10:30 a.m. on July 30. Numbers for Landes and Knowles couldn’t be found by press time on July 30. The News-Journal left a message at a number believed to be connected to Caldwell and didn’t immediately get a response. All three men noted in their resignation letters that they were leaving in good standing to pursue other career opportunities.
A look at permits for other storage buildings found inconsistent fees because examiners assigned “different occupancy and construction classifications.” Some contained classification errors, and some similar buildings didn’t have technical errors but just varied depending on the examiner’s judgment.
Volusia lost thousands of dollars, many life-safety permits went uninspected
The report found that since 2008, over 8,000 building permits have expired without a final inspection. That includes 4,600 permits “involving life-safety systems.”
“These permits represent construction work (electrical, mechanical, and structural) that was never verified for code compliance,” according to the report. “Residents who occupy these structures may unknowingly be in buildings that were never confirmed to meet the Florida Building Code.”
Also, the county has lost money from the issues identified in the audit, according to the report.
The report estimated a loss of more than $400,000 in one year from reinspection fees not being charged properly.
Dozens of Volusia County seawall permits not finished
The report also states that since 2008, 45 seawall permits have expired without their final inspection. That includes 29 that expired since Hurricane Nicole in November 2022. The audit looked at one expired seawall permit.
“Whether the seawall was completed correctly, abandoned or left in service without verification remains unknown,” according to the report. “Seawalls are structural flood-protection barriers and, if improperly constructed, can fail during storm surge, threatening the property, neighboring structures, and waterways.”
According to Ryan, in response to questions from The News-Journal, “All 45 seawalls have been reviewed and are deemed safe. Many of the delays were due to two hurricanes and permitting processes involved with the beach restoration project.”
Also, 43 seawalls “have been inspected, received their final permit, and are closed.” The county is working with the other two seawall owners to schedule a final inspection.
Recommendations include tighter controls, procedures for Volusia County building inspections
The audit uncovered an instance where code compliance officers could have pocketed extra cash on the job, but they chose not to.
“Recently, two Code Compliance Officers received $1,000 in cash each from a grateful applicant,” according to the report. “The officers ultimately did the right thing, refusing the payment and notifying their supervisor, but the episode exposed a procedural gap: there were no documented procedures to guide their response.”
The audit recommends a variety of changes to improve operations and cut down on vulnerabilities, including crafting county conflict-of-interest policies designed specifically for building inspectors.
Ray Tyner is director of the county’s Growth and Resource Management Department, which oversees building inspections. Tyner sent a letter to County Manager George Recktenwald on July 9 in response to the audit.
Tyner states that the Building and Code Administration Division handled 11,888 permits and conducted 33,705inspections during the audit period, but “the audit examined two permits in depth.”
“While the findings in those cases are taken seriously, they do not reflect the full body of professional workperformed by this Division,” he stated.
Tyner, who began working for the county in September 2025 after former director Clay Ervin retired, said his team agreed with many of the auditor’s recommendations and has already implemented some of them. The changes include, among other things, “implementing a mandatory fee removal documentation policy” and “cleaning up AMANDA user permissions.”
Tyner pushed back on several of the auditor’s recommendations, including requiring building inspectors to file an annual conflict of interest disclosure form.
Tyner stated that building inspectors already go through ethics education as part of license renewals. Also, the division agreed to add conflict-of-interest rules into its standard operating procedures.
“An annual form does not prevent an inspector from acting on an undisclosed conflict. The controls that do — supervisory oversight, restricted system access, and clear accountability structures — are precisely what is being corrected,” Tyner stated.
Ryan added that the State of Florida Department of Professional and Business Regulation governs conflict-of-interest matters for code enforcement. Also, every county employee must abide by ethics provisions.
“It is not a common practice in Florida for code enforcement officers to be required to complete an independent conflict of interest form that is separate from the rest of the organization,” according to Ryan. “We were unable to locate a single agency that requires such a form.”
The auditor maintained his position after Tyner’s pushback.
“One hour of ethics instruction every two years teaches concepts; it does not document whether a particular inspector has a family member in the contracting business, a financial interest in a development project, or a prior professional relationship with a frequent permit applicant,” according to the report.
Volusia County says issues are being addressed
Ryan stated that the county has new leadership “committed to efficient and professional operations, including a new Growth and Resource Management director, a new chief building official, a new chief building inspector, and new building inspectors.”
Ryan added, “We agreed (wholly or partially) with all of the recommendations within the audit. As a result, we addressed them all, identified and implemented additional safeguards. Additional checks and balances processes have been implemented to ensure additional layers of independent review within the department.”
— Sheldon Gardner covers Volusia County government, including Volusia County beaches, the city of Daytona Beach and other local governments in West Volusia.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Volusia County audit finds hundreds of thousands in lost revenue
Reporting by Sheldon Gardner, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
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By Sheldon Gardner, Daytona Beach News-Journal | USA TODAY Network
