National administers licensing tests for the state's cosmetology, construction, clinical lab technicians and food handlers program. So test-takers could be passing - and working - without knowing how to do the job.
More importantly, the security problems supported a longstanding department rumor: that state licensing tests could be purchased on the street.
''I heard when I was deputy assistant secretary that you could get any test you wanted, but nobody proved it to me,'' said John Davis, a former deputy assistant secretary who left the department two years ago and now is a Washington lobbyist.
Established 20 years ago, National has offices in 17 states and contracts nationwide in what has become an $11 million-a-year business. In Florida alone, the company has conducted construction tests for 17 years, earning $3.5 million in contracts over the last four years.
Since the inspection, National said it has begun using new security systems including cameras in the vault and a detailed inventory process.
National counters the criticisms by saying it reviewed its inventory and found no tests missing and no employees involved in selling tests.
''Everything that was supposed to be there was there,'' company President Lee Schroeder said.
Eugene Rose entered the March 3 construction test at the state's Orlando testing facility planning to take an open book exam.
A short time later, Rose was speaking to Orange County deputy sheriffs. The 43-year-old Nassau County man had 50 percent of the questions for the state's plumbing test tucked inside a book, police reports said.
Rose told deputies he bought the book from an employee of a Jacksonville plumbing supplier. The price: $1,500 cash. Rose told police he didn't know the test material was inside the book. He was not charged but the matter has been turned over to prosecutors in Jacksonville.