“Somali Scott” Brannon Rarely Shows for Work – Time Card Fraud in Walton County?

An investigation into the attendance record of a high-ranking, politically connected employee raises serious concerns that Walton County taxpayers may be getting fleeced. We requested the keycard access logs for Scott Brannon, Walton County’s Director of Governmental Coordination, going back to July 1, 2023.

On December 22, 2025, we received logs for the past year as the County does not retain the records longer than that.

“Somali Scott” Brannon’s Abysmal Attendance Record

An examination of keycard access logs showed that Brannon, who was previously elected to serve on the Walton County BCC some years ago, entered a county facility on just 114 days in 2025. Two of those dates fell on a Sunday (July 6 and August 17). After subtracting 104 days for weekends and roughly 12 holidays, there are about 250 working days in a calendar year.

“Somali Scott” Brannon showed up to a county facility less than half the time, and it gets worse.

You can view an Excel file with every keycard swipe here, but I have included screenshots of his January and March logs to give you a flavor for how bad it is:

Posted hours for the Walton County administration building show an 8:00 AM start time for county business. There is only one instance of Brannon showing up to work “on-time.” And he only managed to drag himself into the office before 9:00 AM on 16 days in 2025.

When you dig further it gets even worse still.

Of the 112 working days he entered a county facility, he accessed the building just once on 46 days. This suggests Brannon did not even put in a full day of work as you would expect most employees to have multiple entries to account for lunch and other work breaks.

Put another way, the data shows that there are only 66 working days when Brannon entered a county building two or more times.

The man rarely shows up for work and when he does there is little evidence to indicate he actually puts in a full day of work.

Moreover, you will not find Brannon listed in the Walton County staff directory. Why is that?

The man is a ghost.

Is This Time Card Fraud?

When a government employee only shows up for just 112 work days in a year, is that time card fraud?

If an employee only manages to make it into the office “on-time” once and only gets into the office before 9 AM on just 16 working days — is that time card fraud?

This data is concerning — but are there other possible explanations to account for such an abysmally low number of days in the office?

We queried Walton County officials for a list of PTO days taken by Brannon going back to July 2023. There was no record of him taking any sick or vacation time in 2024 or 2025.

Is it possible that Brannon camps out at the door to his building and waits for someone else to swipe him in throughout the day — virtually every single day?

Is it possible that Brannon has excavated a clandestine network of underground tunnels like a Mexican drug cartel and uses those to enter and exit county buildings undetected?

It is unclear if this is an isolated incident or suggestive of more systemic issues plaguing county government.

We recently learned about a former county employee who appears to have fudged on his timecard at least once. There have been reports that Commissioner Brad Drake who works for the state of Florida has submitted timecards showing him at work while he was actually attending BCC meetings. And there have also been claims that Sheriff Mike Adkinson has spent an inordinate amount of time teaching classes at a college in the Tallahassee area.

These findings regarding Brannon merit further investigation and each member of the Walton County BCC should be demanding a detailed examination of timecards to ensure taxpayers have not become unwitting victims of their own Somali-like scandal.