Joseph M. Centorino was appointed as the first Inspector General for the City of Miami Beach, assuming that position on November 1, 2019. The post was created following a citywide referendum in 2018 in which 81% of city voters supported a charter amendment establishing an independent Office of Inspector General to conduct investigations, audits and oversight of City government operations. Mr. Centorino supervises a full-time staff of five internal auditors, six tax auditors, two investigators, and an office manager. He is an attorney, a Certified Inspector General, Certified Inspector General Auditor, and Certified Inspector General Inspector/Evaluator.
Mr. Centorino previously served as the Executive Director/General Counsel of the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust from 2011 to 2018. In that position he led the agency’s extensive ethics training program and oversaw the provision of ethics opinions for elected officials, public employees, lobbyists, board members and political candidates, as well as the enforcement of the Miami-Dade Ethics Code, which covers all public servants in Miami-Dade County government and all municipalities within the County.
Prior to his service with the Ethics Commission, he spent twenty-five years as an Assistant State Attorney at the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office under State Attorneys Janet Reno and Katherine Fernandez Rundle. His service in that office included 16 years as the Chief of the Public Corruption Unit, where he supervised, investigated and prosecuted major corruption cases involving elected and appointed public officials and employees.
Mr. Centorino began his professional career in Massachusetts as an aide to former U.S. Representative Michael J. Harrington, and then worked in private law practice and as an Assistant District Attorney in Essex County, MA. He also served for eight years as an elected city councilman in his hometown of Salem, MA.
Mr. Centorino holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in Political Science from Tufts University, a Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School, and is a member of the Florida Bar as well as the Bars of Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He has served as an instructor of Professionalism and Ethics at the Florida International University Metropolitan Center, and is a frequent lecturer, speaker and panelist on government corruption and ethics-related topics. He was the recipient of the Lawyers in Leadership Award from the Center for Ethics and Public Service at the University of Miami School of Law in 2011 and has served on the Florida Bar Professional Ethics Committee.
